BEAUTIFUL 
THOUGHTS 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Ohai). Copyright No. 

Shelf- » S__5 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



My thanks are due Messrs. Harper & Brothers for 
their courteous permission to reprint extracts from 
their recently published volumes, " The Letters of 
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett." 






63 



L?.4240. 



COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY 
JAMES POTT & CO 



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Library ^f Con^reac 

■• vvo Copies Received 
SEP 1 1900 

CtfyngM entry 

ScCrm} COPY. 

Qii\JiH DIVISION. 
Mt 6 1900 



TO 

WILLIAM EWEN SHIPP, 

Killed while leading a charge on San Juan 
Hill, July ist, 1898. 



O lover of my life, O soldier-saint, 
No work begun shall ever pause for death ! 
Love will be helpful to me more and more 
r the coming course, the new path I must 

tread, 
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for 

that ! 
Tell him that if I seem without him now, 
That's the world's insight ! Oh, he under- 
stands ! 
The Ring and the Book. — ROBEET Beowning. 



JANUARY. 



January isf. / 

Grow old along with me ! -J 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith "A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God : see all, 
nor be afraid ! ' ' 

Rabin Ben Ezra. — R. B. 

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 
*' Let no one be called happy till his death." 
To which I add, — Let no one till his death 
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work 
Until the day's out and the labor done. 

Aurora Leigh. — ^E. B. B, 

God plants us where we grow. 

The Bing and the Book.—n. B. 



BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



January 2d. 

*' How good is man's life, the mere living ! 
how fit to employ 

All the heart and the soul and the senses for- 
ever in joy ! 



*' Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, 
held up as men sung 

The low song of the nearly-departed, and 
hear her faint tongue 

Joining in while it could to the witness, ' Let 
one more attest, 

T have lived, seen God's hand thro' a life- 
time, and all was for the best ! ' " 

Saul.—R. B. 

There are nettles everywhere, 
But smooth green grasses are more common 

still ; 
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 
Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 



FROM BBOWNINQ 



January }d. 
I think we are too ready with complaint 
In this fair world of God's. Had we no 

hope 
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope 
Of yon grey bank of sky, we might be faint 
To muse upon eternity's constraint 
Round our aspirant souls. But since the 

scope 
Must widen early, is it well to droop 
For a few days consumed in loss and taint ? 
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted, — 
And like a cheerful traveller, take the road. 
Singing beside the hedge. What if the 

bread 
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
To meet the flints? — At least, it may be 

said, 
** Because the way is shorty I thank Thee, 

God ! " 

Cheerfulness Taught by Reason. — E. B. B. 

Respect all such as sing when all alone. 
Faracelaus, — K. B. 



10 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

January 4th. 
To have to do with nothing but the true, 
The good, the eternal — and these, not alone 
In the main current of the general life. 
But small experiences of every day, 
Concerns of the particular hearth and home : 
To learn not only by a comet's rush 
But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, 

God,— 
But the comfort, Christ. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 
He sets his virtues on so raised a shelf. 
To keep them at the grand millennial height. 
He has to mount a shelf to get at them ; 
And meantime, lives on quite the common 

way. 
With everybody's morals. 

Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 

January ^th. 
That low man seeks a little thing to do. 

Sees it and does it : 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 



FROM BROWNING 11 

That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred's soon hit : 
This high man, aiming at a miUion, 

Misses an unit. 
That, has the world here — should he need 
the next, 
Let the world mind him ! 
This, throws himself on God, and unper- 
plexed 
Seeking shall find Him. 

A Orammarian'8 Funeral. — R. B. 

And truth outlives pain, as the soul does life. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

January 6th. ' 
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem, 
The dumb kine from their fodder turning 
them. 
Softened their horned faces 
To almost human gazes 
Toward the newly Born. 
The simple shepherds from the starlit brooks 
Brought visionary looks, 



12 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

As yet in their astonished hearing rung 

The strange, sweet angel-tongue. 
The magi of the East, in sandals worn. 

Knelt reverent, sweeping round, 
AVith long pale beards their gifts upon the 
ground, 

The incense, myrrh and gold. 
These baby hands were impotent to hold. 
So, let all earthlies and celestials wait 

Upon thy royal state ! 

Sleep, sleep, my kingly One ! 
The Virgin Mary to the Child Jema.—E. B. B. 

January yth. 
Great is he 
Who uses his greatness for all. 
. . . . happy is he, 
Of whom (himself among the dead 
And silent, ) this word shall be said ; 
— That he might have had the world with him, 
But chose to side with suffering men, 
And had the world against him. 

Napoleon III. in Italy,— E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 13 

Think, when our one soul understands 
The great Word which makes all things 
new, 
When earth breaks up and heaven expands, 

How will the change strike me and you 
In the house not made with hands ? 

By the Fireside,—^. B. 

January 8th, 
But to go back to the view of life with the 
blind hopes ; you are not to think — whatever 
I may have written or implied — that I lean 
either to the philosophy or affectation which 
beholds the world through darkness instead 
of light, and speaks of it wailingly. Now 
God forbid that it should be so with me. I 
am not desponding by nature, and after a 
course of bitter mental discipline and long 
bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt 
lessons (as I sometimes say and oftener feel,) 
— ^the wisdom of cheerfulness — and the duty 
of social intercourse. Anguish has instructed 
me in joy, and solitude in society; it has 



14 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

been a wholesome and not unnatural reac- 
tion. And altogether, I may say that the 
earth looks the brighter to me in proportion 
to my own deprivations. The laburnum 
trees and rose trees are plucked up by the 
roots — but the sunshine is in their places, and 
the root of the sunshine is above the storms. 
— From The Letters of Bobet-t Browning mid Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brothers. 

January pth. 
But friends, 
Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may be- 
lieve : 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness ; and around 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems in it, 
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth ; 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Blinds it and makes all error; and '* fo 

know^' 
Rather consists in opening out a way 



FROM BROWNING 15 

Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, 

Than in effecting entrance for a light 

Supposed to be without. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

. . . . cognizant of life 

Beyond this blood-beat, — passionate for truth 

Beyond these senses. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

January loth. 

Pleasures, pains affect mankind 

Just as they affect myself? Why, here's my 

neighbor color-blind, 
Eyes like mine to all appearance : '* green as 

grass " do I affirm? 
*'Red as grass" he contradicts me — which 

employs the proper term ? 
Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no 

third for referee. 
How should I distinguish? Just so, God 

must judge *twixt man and me. 

La Saisiaz. — R. B. 

Now, who shall arbitrate ? 

Ten men love what I hate, 



16 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; 

Ten, who in ears and eyes 

Match me : we all surmise, 

They, this thing, and I, that : whom shall my 

soul believe? 

BahU Ben Ezra, — R. B. 

January nth. 
O we live, O we live — 
And this life that we perceive. 
Is a great thing and a grave, 
Which for others* use we have, 
Duty-laden to remain. 
We are helpers, fellow-creatures, 
Of the right against the wrong. 
We are earnest-hearted teachers 
Of the truth that maketh strong. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

How the world is made for each of us ! 
How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moment's product thus, 
When a soul declares itself — to wit. 
By its fruit, the thing it does ! 

By the Fireside, — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 17 

January 12th. 
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of 

good, shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor 

good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each sur- 
vives for the melodist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an 

hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for 

earth too hard. 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself 

in the sky, 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and 

the bard ; 
Enough that He heard it once: we shall 

hear it by and by. 



And what is our failure here but a triumph's 

evidence 
For the fullness of the days? Have we 

withered or agonized ? 



18 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Why else was the pause prolonged but that 
singing might issue thence ? 

Why rushed the discords in, but that har- 
mony should be prized ? 

AM Vogler.—R. B. 

January ijth. 
Oh you, 
Earth's tender and impassioned few, 
Take courage to entrust your love 
To Him so named, who guards above 

Its ends and shall fulfill ; 
Breaking the narrow prayers that may 
Befit your narrow hearts, away 
In His broad, loving will. 

IsobeVa Child.— E. B. B. 

And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up 
To God the strong, God the beneficent, 
God ever mindful in all strife and strait. 
Who, for our own good, makes the need ex- 
treme. 
Till at the last He puts forth might and saves. 
The Ming and the Book. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 19 

January 14th. 
When a soul has seen 
By means of the Evil that Good is best, 
And, through earth and its noises, what is 

heaven's serene, — 
When our faith in the same has stood the 

test — 
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 
The uses of labor are surely done ; 
There remaineth a rest for the people of God. 
Old Pictures in Florence. — R. B. 

Ay, men may wonder while they scan 
A living, thinking, feehng man. 
Confirmed in such a rest to keep ; 
But angels say, and through the word 
I think their happy smile is heard — 
*' He giveth His beloved sleep ! " 

The Sleep.— Ys. B. B. 

January i^th. 
Let us be content, in work. 
To do the thing we can, and not presume, 
To fret because it's little. 'Twill employ 



20 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Seven men, they say, to make a perfect pin : 
Who makes the head, content to miss the 

point. 
Who makes the point, agreed to leave the 

join : 
And if a man should cry, '' I want a pin, 
And I must make it straightway, head and 

point," 
His wisdom is not worth the pin he wants. 
Seven men to a pin, and not a man too 

much ! 
Seven generations, haply, to this world, 
To right it visibly a finger's breadth, 
And mend its rents a little. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

All service ranks the same with God. 

Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

January i6th. 
And God knows who sees us twain, 

Child at childish leisure, 
I am near as tired of pain 

As you seem of pleasure ; 



FROM BROWNING 21 

Very soon too, by His grace 

Gently wrapt around me, 
Shall I show as calm a face, 

Shall I sleep as soundly ! 
Differing in this, that you 

Clasp your playthings sleeping, 
While my hand shall drop the few 

Given to my keeping ; 
Differing in this, that / 

Sleeping shall be colder, 
And in waking presently, 

Brighter to beholder ! 

Sleeping and Watching. — E. B. B. 

January lylh. 
When grief came upon grief, I was never 
tempted to ask '' How have I deserved this 
of God," as sufferers sometimes do : I always 
felt there must be cause enough . . . cor- 
ruption enough, needing purification . . . 
weakness enough, needing strengthening 
. . . nothing of the chastisement could 
come without cause and need. But in this 
different hour, when joy follows joy, and 



22 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

God makes me happy, as you say, through 
you ... I cannot repress the . . . "How 
have I deserved this of Him? " — I know I 
have not — I know I do not. 

— From The Letters of Robert Broioning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

'< Apologize for atheism, not love ! 
For me, I do believe in love and God." 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

January i8th. 
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower. 
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil, 
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth. 
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim 
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect. 
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's 

sake — 
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope 
Of some eventual rest a-top of it. 

The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun. 

Cleon,—R. B. 



FBOM BROWNING 23 

Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God ; 
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, 
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, 
And daub their natural faces unaware 
More and more from the first similitude. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

January igth. 
Friend-making, everywhere friend-finding 

soul. 
Fit for the sunshine, so it followed him. 
A happy- tempered bringer of the best 
Out of the worst; who bears with what's 

past cure, 
And puts so good a face on't — wisely passive 
Where action's foolish, while he remedies 
In silence what the foolish rail against. 

A SouVs Tragedy.— R. B. 

How soon a smile of God can change the 

world ! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight 1 



24 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

True, I have lost so many years : what then ? 
Many remain : God has been very good. 

In a Balcony, — R. B. 

January 20th. 
Is it so helpful to thee ? Canst thou take 
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake. 
Put gently by such efforts at a beam ? 
Is the remainder of the way so long 
Thou need' St the little solace, thou the strong ? 
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and 
dream ! 

Any Wife to Any Husband. — R. B. 

Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life 
With which we're tired, my heart and I. 
3Iy Heart and I.— E. B. B. 

'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you. 
Who care not for their presence, — muse or 

sleep — 
And all at once they leave you and you know 

them! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 25 

January 21st 
We overstate the ills of life, and take 
Imagination, given us to bring down 
The choirs of singing angels overshone 
By God's clear glory, — down our earth to rake 
The dismal snows instead. 

Exaggeration. — E. B, B. 

How soon all worldly wrong would be re- 
paired ! 
I think how I should view the earth and 
skies 
And sea, when once again my brow was bared 
After thy healing, with such different eyes. 
O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 
What further may be sought for or declared ? 
The Guardian- Angel. — R. B. 

January 22d. 
Witness, Dear and True, how little was I 

'ware of — not your worth 
— That I knew, my heart assures me — Dut of 

what a shade on earth 



26 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Would the passage from my presence of the 
tall white figure throw 

O'er the ways we walked together ! Some- 
what narrow, somewhat slow, 

Used to seem the ways, the walking : narrow 
ways are well to tread 

When there's moss beneath the footstep, 
honeysuckle overhead : 



Yes, I knew — but not with knowledge such 

as thrills me while I view 
Yonder precinct which henceforward holds 

and hides the Dear and True. 
Grant me (once again) assurance we shall 

each meet each some day, 
Walk — but with how bold a footstep ! on a 

way — but what a way ! 
— Worst were best, defeat were triumph, 

utter loss were utmost gain. 
Can it be, and must, and will it ? 

La Saisiaz. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 27 

January 2}d. 
But I, not privileged to see a saint 
Of old when such walked earth with crown 

and palm, 
If I call "saint " what saints call something 

else — 
The saints must bear with me, impute the fault 
To a soul i' the bud, so starved by ignorance, 
Stinted of warmth, it will not blow this year 
Nor recognize the orb which Spring-flowers 

know. 
But if meanwhile some insect with a heart 
Worth floods of lazy music, spendthrift joy — 
Some firefly renounced Spring for my 

dwarfed cup, 
Crept close to me with lustre for the dark, 
Comfort against the cold, — what though excess 
Of comfort should miscall the creature — sun ? 
What did the sun to hinder while harsh hands 
Petal by petal, crude and colorless, 
Tore me? This one heart brought me all 

the Spring ! 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



28 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

January 24th. 
If God is not too great for little cares, 
Is any creature, because gone to God ? 

The human spirits feel the human way, 
And hate the unreasoning awe which waves 

them off 
From possible communion. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Now God be thanked for years enwrought 

With love which softens yet ! 
Now God be thanked for every thought 
Which is so tender it has caught 

Earth's guerdon of regret ! 
Earth saddens, never shall remove, 

Affections purely given ; 
And e'en that mortal grief shall prove 
The immortality of love 

And brighten it with Heaven ! 

The Pet-Name.— E. B. B. 

January 2^th. 
Tell me — is it your opinion that when the 
Apostle Paul saw the unspeakable things be- 



FROM BROWNING 29 

ing snatched up into the third Heavens, 
"whether in the body or out of the body he 
could not tell," — is it your opinion that, all 
the week after, he worked particularly hard 
at the tent-making ? 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliz- 
abeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 

"I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no 
more and no less, 

In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and 
God is seen God 

In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the 
soul and the clod. 

And thus looking within and around me, I 
ever renew, 

(With that stoop of the soul which in bend- 
ing, upraises it too) 

The submission of man's nothing-perfect to 
God's all-complete, 

As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb 

to His feet. 

Saul.—R. B. 



30 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

January 26th. 
Echoes die off, scarcely reverberate 
Forever, — why should ill keep echoing ill, 
And never let our ears have done with noise ? 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

Truth is fair : should we forego it ? 
Can we sigh right for a wrong ? 
God Himself is the best Poet, 
And the Real is His song. 
Sing His Truth out fair and full, 
And secure His beautiful. 

What is true and just and honest, 
What is lovely, what is pure — 
All of praise that hath admonish 'd — 
All of virtue shall endure. — 

2%e Dead P«n.— E. B. B. 

January 2yth. 
Men define a man, 
The creature who stands frontward to the 

stars. 
The creature who looks inward to himself, 



FROM BROWNING 31 

The tool-wright, laughing creature. 'Tis 

enough : 
We'll say, instead, the inconsequent creature, 

man. 
For that's his specialty. What creature else 
Conceives the circle, and then walks the 

square ? 
Loves things proved bad, and leaves a thing 

proved good ? 

Alas, long-suffering and most patient God, 
Thou need'st be surelier God to bear with us 
Than even to have made us ! 



Sustain me, that with Thee I walk these 

waves, 
Resisting ! — breathe me upward, Thou in me 
Aspiring, who art the way, the truth, the 

life,— 
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent, 
No way to truth laborious. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



32 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

January 28th. 
So what is there to frown or smile at ? 
What is left for us, save, in growth 
Of soul, to rise up, far past both, 
From the gift looking to the giver, 
And from the cistern to the river, 
And from the finite to infinity. 
And from man's dust to God's divinity ? 

Take all in a word : the truth in God's breast 
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed : 
Though He is so bright and we so dim, 
We are made in His image to witness Him. 
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B. 

For all, love greatens and glorifies 
Till God's aglow, to the loving eyes, 
In what was mere earth before. 

James Lee's Wife.—K. B. 

January igth. 
Get leave to work. 
In this world, — 'tis the best you get at all 
For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 



FROM BROWNING 33 

Than men in benediction. God says, 

^' Sweat 
For foreheads," men say ''crowns"; and 

so we are crowned, — 
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
Which snaps with a secret spring. Get 

work ; get work ; 
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

When a man's busy, why, leisure 
Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : 
Faith, and at leisure once is he ? 
Straightway he wants to be busy. 

The Glove.— R. B. 

January }oth. 
He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live 
So long as God please, and just how God 

please. 
He even seeketh not to please God more 
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God 
please. 

An Epistle,— K. B. 



34 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

*' Let that old life seem mine — no more — 
With limitation as before, 
With darkness, hunger, toil, distress: 
Be all the earth a wilderness ! 
Only let me go on, go on, 
Still hoping ever and anon 
To reach one eve the Better Land ! " 

Chriatmas-Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B. 



January jist. 
*' God lent him and takes him," you 

sigh . . . 
— Nay, there let me break with your pain. 
God's generous in giving, say I, 
And the thing which He gives, I deny 
That He ever can take back again. 

He lends not, but gives to the end. 
As He loves to the end. If it seem 
That He draws back a gift, comprehend 
'Tis to add to it rather . . . amend, 
And finish it up to your dream, — 



FROM BROWNING 35 

So look up, friends ! You who indeed 
Have possessed in your house a sweet piece 
Of the heaven which men strive for, must 

need 
Be more earnest than others are, speed 
Where they loiter, persist where they cease. 
Only a Curl.—E. B. B. 



FEBRUARY. 



February ist 
In my own heart love had not been made 

wise 
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
To see a good in evil, and a hope 
In ill-success ; to sympathize, be proud 
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, 
Their prejudice, and fears, and cares, and 

doubts 
Which all touch upon nobleness, despite 
Their error, all tend upwardly, though weak, 
Like plants in mines which never saw the 

sun. 
But dream of him, and guess where he may 

be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him. 
All this I knew not, and I failed. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



40 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

February 2d. 
I am not proud — meek angels, ye invest 
New meeknesses to hear such utterance 

rest 
On mortal lips, — *'I am not proud" — not 

proud ! 
Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son, 
Albeit over Him my head is bowed 
As others bow before Him, still mine heart 
Bows lower than their knees. O centuries 
That roll, in vision, your futurities 

My future grave athwart, — 
Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I 
keep 
Watch o'er this sleep, — 
Say of me as the Heavenly said, — **Thou 

art 
The blessedest of women ! " — blessedest. 
Not holiest, not noblest — no high name. 
Whose height misplaced may pierce me like 
a shame, 
When I sit meek in heaven ! 

The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 41 

February jd. 

O my God, 

How sick we must be, ere we make men 

just ! 
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see 
How many desolate creatures on the earth 
Have learned the simple dues of fellowship 
And social comfort, in a hospital ! 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Earth surely now may give her calm to whom 
she gave her anguish. 



O poets ! from a maniac's tongue was poured 
the deathless singing ! 

O Christians ! at your cross of hope, a hope- 
less hand was clinging ! 

O men ! this man in brotherhood your weary 
paths beguiling, 

Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and 
died while ye were smiling ! 

Cowper^s Grave. — E. B. B. 



J 



42 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

February 4th. 
In youth I looked to these very skies, 
And probing their immensities, 
I found God there, His visible power ; 
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense 
Of the power, an equal evidence 
That His love, there too, was the nobler dower. 
For the loving worm within its clod, 
Were diviner than a loveless god 
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say. 

Christmas- Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B. 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his 

grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for ? 

Men and Women. — R. B. 

February ^th. 
All are not taken ! there are left behind 
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
And make the daylight still a happy thing, 
And tender voices to make soft the wind. 
But if it were not so — if I could find 
No love in all the world for comforting, 



FROM BROWNING 43 

Nor any path but hollowly did ring, 

Where *< dust to dust" the love from life 

disjoined — 
And if before these sepulchres unmoving 
I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb 
Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) 
Crying *' Where are ye, O my loved and 

loving ? " . . 
I know a Voice would sound, ' ' Daughter, I am. 
Can I suffice for Heaven, and not for earth ? " 
Consolation. — E. B. B. 

February 6th. 

There is more in the soul than rises to the 
surface and meets the eye ; whatever does 
that, is for this world's immediate uses ; and 
were this world all, all in us would be pro- 
ducible and available for use, as it is with 
the body now — but with the soul, what is to 
be developed afterward is the main thing, 
and instinctively asserts its rights. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brother. 



44 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

. . . souls shall rise in their degree ; 
Butterflies may dread extinction, — you'll not 
die, it cannot be. 

A Toccata of GaluppVa. — R. B. 

February yth. 
And from thy soul, which fronts the future 

so, 
With unabashed and unabated gaze, 
Teach me to hope for, what the Angels know, 
When they smile clear as thou dost. Down 

God's ways. 
With just alighted feet between the snow 
And snowdrops, where a little lamb may 

gaze, 
Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road. 
Albeit in our vainglory we assume 
That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of 

God. 

Howe'er the uneasy world is vexed and 

wroth, 
Young children, lifted high on parent souls, 



FROM BROWNING 45 

Look round them with a smile upon the 

mouth, 
And take for music every bell that tolls. 
Who said we should be better if like these ? 
And we sit murmuring for the future though 
Posterity is smiling on our knees, 
Convicting us of folly ? Let us go — 
We will trust God. 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

February 8th. 
You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 
— When I say '^ you " 'tis the common soul, 
The collective, I mean : the race of Man 
That receives life in parts to live in a whole, 
And grow here according to God's clear plan. 

'Tis a lifelong toil till our lump be leaven — 

The better ? What's come to perfection per- 
ishes. 

Things learned on earth, we shall practice in 
heaven : 

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 

Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto ! 



46 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not) ? 

Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 

Old Pictures in Florence. — K. B. 

February gth. 
So oft the doing of God's will 
Our foolish wills undoeth ! 
And yet what idle dream breaks ill, 

Which morning light subdueth ; 
And who would murmur or misdoubt, 
When God's great sunrise finds him out ? 
An Island.— E. B. B. 

When graver, meeker thoughts are given, 
And I have learnt to lift my face, 
Reminded how earth's greenest place 
The color draws from heaven, — 

It something saith for earthly pain, 
But more for heavenly promise free, 
That I who was, would shrink to be 
That happy child again. 

The Deserted Garden.-^E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 47 

February loth. 
We of these latter days, with greater mind 
Than our forerunners, since more composite, 
Look not so great, beside their simple way, 
To a judge who only sees one way at once, 
One mind-point and no other at a time, — 
Compares the small part of a man of us 
AVith some whole man of the heroic age. 
Great in his way, not ours, nor meant for 

ours. 
And ours is greater, had we skill to know. 

Cleon—K. B. 

We do not serve the dead — the past is past ! 
God hves, and lifts His glorious mornings up 
Before the eyes of men, awake at last. 

Casa Guidi Windoivs. — E. B. B. 

February nth. 
For I, a man, with men am linked. 
And not a brute with brutes ; no gain 
That I experience, must remain 
Unshared : but should my best endeavor 
To share it, fail — subsisteth ever 



48 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

God's care above, and I exult, 
That God, by God's own ways occult, 
May — doth, I will believe — bring back 
All wanderers to a single track. 

Christmas Eve. — R. B. 

If he strained too wide, 
It was not to take honor but give help ; 
The gesture was heroic. If his hand 
Accomplished nothing . . . (well, it is not 

proved) 
That empty hand thrown impotently out 
Were sooner caught, I think, by One in 

heaven 
Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



February 12th. 
If we whose virtue is so weak, should have a 

will so strong. 
And stand blind on the rocks, to choose the 

right path from the wrong ? 



FROM BROWNING 49 

To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead 

of love and Heaven, — 
A single rose, for a rose-tree, which beareth 

seven times seven ? 
A rose that droppeth from the hand, that 

fadeth in the breast, 
Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn 

what is the best ! 

The Lay of the Brown Rosary. — E. B. B. 

I wish indeed <* God's kingdom come " — 
The day when I shall see appear 
His bidding, as my duty, clear 

From doubt ! 

Christmas-Eve and Easter- Day. — R. B. 

February ijth. 
Youth is the time — our youth, 
To think and to decide on a great course : 
Age with its action follows ; but 'tis dreary 
To have to alter one's whole life in age — 
The time past, the strength gone ! 

Strafford.— R. B. 



50 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Pause here upon this strip of time 
Allotted you out of eternity ! 

King Victor and King Charles. — R. B. 
God, set our feet low and our forehead high, 
And show us how a man is made to walk ! 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

February 14th. 
Whoever lives true life, will love true love. 
Aurora Leigh. — E, B. B. 

Whosoever says 
To a loyal woman * ' Love and work with 

me," 
Will get fair answers if the work and love 
Being good themselves, are good for her — 

the best 
She was born for. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world 

with. 
One to show a woman when he loves her ! 
One Word More.—K. B. 



FROM BROWNING 51 

February i^th. 
And was I so far wrong 
In hope and in illusion, when I took 
The woman to be nobler than the man, 
Yourself the noblest woman, — in the use 
And comprehension of what love is, — love, 
That generates the likeness of itself 
Through all heroic duties ? so far wrong. 
In saying bluntly, venturing truth on love, 
** Come, human creature, love and work with 

me," 
Instead of " Lady, thou art wondrous fair, 
. . . Turn round and love me, or I die of 

love?" 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



A simple woman who believes in love 

And owns the right of love because she 

loves, 
And hearing she's beloved, is satisfied 
With what contents God. 

Ibid, 



52 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

February i6th. 
All at once I looked up with terror. 
He was there. 

He Himself with His human air, 
On the narrow pathway, just before. 
I saw the back of Him, no more — 



No face : only the sight 

Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, 

With a hem that I could recognize. 

I felt no terror, no surprise ; 

. . . '< I remember, He did say 

Doubtless, that, to this world's end, 

Where two or three should meet and 

pray. 
He would be in the midst, their friend ; 
Certainly He was there with them ! " 
And my pulses leaped for joy 
Of the golden thought without alloy, 
That I saw His very vesture's hem. 

Christmas-Eve and Easter- Day. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 53 



February lyth. 
•'Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and 
held 
By the hem of the vesture ! " 

And I caught 
At the flying robe, and unrepelled 
Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught 
With warmth and wonder and delight, 
God's mercy being infinite. 



So He said, so it befalls. 
God Who registers the cup 
Of mere cold water, for His sake 
To a disciple rendered up, 
Disdains not His own thirst to slake 
At the poorest love was ever offered : 
And because my heart I proffered. 
With true love trembling at the brim, 
He suffers me to follow Him 
Forever, my own way." 

Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B. 



54 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

February i8th. 
''There is no God," the foolish saith, 
But none, "There is no sorrow ; " 
And nature oft, the cry of faith. 
In bitter need will borrow : 
Eyes which the preacher could not school. 
By wayside graves are raised ; 
And lips say, "God be pitiful," 
Who ne'er said " God be praised." 
Be pitiful, O God ! 



And soon all vision waxeth dull — 

Men whisper, "He is dying : " 

We cry no more, " Be pitiful ! " 

We have no strength for crying : 

No strength, no need ! Then, Soul of 

mine, 
Look up and triumph rather — 
Lo ! in the depths of God's Divine, 
The Son adjures the Father — 

Be pitiful, O God ! 
The Cry of the Human.— 'E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 55 

February ipth. 
** 'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, 

but what man Would do ! 
See the King — I would help him but cannot, 

the wishes fall through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, 

grow poor to enrich, 
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would 

— knowing which, 

I know that my service is perfect." 

Saul.--R. B. 

"What, my soul? see thus far and no far- 
ther ? when doors great and small, 

Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should 
the hundredth appall ? 

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in 
the greatest of all ? 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's 
ultimate gift, 

That I doubt His own love can compete with 
it ? Here, the parts shift ? 

Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the 
end, what Began ? 



56 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all 

for this man, 

And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, 

Who yet alone can ? ' ' 

Saul.—R. B. 

February 20th. 
As the birds sang in the branches, 
Sing God's patience through my soul ! 

Hector in the Garden. — E. B. B. 

God gives patience. Love learns strength. 
And Faith remembers promise ; 

And Hope itself can smile at length 
On other hopes gone from us. 

A Child's Grave at Florence.— E. B. B. 

Live and love, — 
Doing both nobly, because lowlily ; 
Live and work, strongly, — because patiently ! 

. With constant prayers 
Fasten your souls so high, that constantly 
The smile of your heroic cheer may float 
Above all floods of earthly agonies, 
Purification being the joy of pain ! 

A Drama of Exile, — E. B. B. 



FBOM BROWNING 57 

February 21st. 

"Weakness never needs be falseness : truth 
is truth in each degree 

— Thunderpealed by God to Nature, whis- 
pered by my soul to me. 

Nay, the weakness turns to strength and tri- 
umphs in a truth beyond : 

Mine is but man's truest answer — how were 
it did God respond?" 

La Saisiaz. — R. B. 

' ' I love love: truth's no cleaner thing than love. 

. What, love and /ie / 
Nay — go to the opera ! your love's curable." 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be 
true ! 

. aspire to live as these 
In harmony with truth, ourselves being true ! 
In a Balcony. — R. B, 

February 22d. 
Some natures catch no plagues. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



58 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

We that had loved him so, followed him, 
honored him, 
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye. 
Learned his great language, caught his clear 
accents, 
Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
The Lost Leader. — R. B, 

Still bettered more, the more remembered. 
The Ring and the Book.—R. B. 

All actual heroes are essential men. 
And all men possible heroes. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Februarv 2^d. 

Heart and will are great things, . . . but 
after all we carry a barrowful of clay about 
with us, and we must carry it a little care- 
fully if we mean to keep to the path and not 
run zigzag into the border of the garden. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 



FROM BROWNING 59 

Souls were dangerous things to carry straight 
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, 
And matter enough to save one's own. 

A Light Woman. — R. B. 

February 24th. 
" There is a way — 
'Tis hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued 
With frailty — hopeless, if indulgence first 
Have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength : 
Wilt thou adventure, for My sake and 

man's, 
Apart from all reward?" And last it 

breathed — 
'' Be happy, my good soldier, I am by thee 
Be sure, even to the end ! " I answered 

not, 
Knowing Him. As He spoke, I was endued 
With comprehension and a steadfast will ; 
And when He ceased, my brow was sealed 

His own. 



60 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

If there took place no special change in me, 

How comes it all things wore a different hue 

Thenceforward ? 

Faracelans. — R. B. 

February 2^th. 
In the beginning when God called all good, 
Even then was evil near us, it is writ. 
But we indeed who call things good and fair, 
The evil is upon us while we speak : 
Deliver us from evil, let us pray. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

There began a yelp here, a bark there, — 
Misunderstanding creatures that were wroth 
And vexed themselves and us till we retired. 
The hovel is life : no matter what dogs bit 
Or cats scratched in the hovel I break from, 
All outside is lone field, moon and such 

peace — 
Flowing in, filling up as with a sea 
Whereon comes Someone, walks fast on the 

white, 

Jesus Christ's self. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 61 

February 26th. 
Let us not always say 
*' Spite of this flesh to-day 
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the 
whole!" 
As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry *' All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, 
than flesh helps soul ! " 

Therefore I summon age 

To grant youth's heritage. 
Life's struggle having so far reached its term : 

Thence shall I pass, approved 

A man, for aye removed 

From the developed brute ; a God though in 

the germ. 

RaUi Ben Ezra.—R. B. 

February 2yth. 
There's a world of capability 
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 

Inviting us. 

Cleon.—^. B. 



BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Capacity for joy 
Admits temptation. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Remember that as you owe your unscathed 
joy to God, you should pay it back to His 
world. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brothers. 

Maker and High Priest, 
I ask Thee not my joys to multiply, — 
Only make me worthier of the least. 

Adequacy. — E. B. B. 

February 28th. 

God, God ! 
With a child's voice I cry 
Weak, sad, confidingly, — 

God, God ! 
Thou knowest eyelids raised not always up 
Unto Thy love, (as none of ours are,) droop 
As ours, o'er many a tear ! 



FROM BROWNING 63 

Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, 
Two Uttle tears suffice to cover all. 
Thou knowest, — Thou . 

The SoiiVs Travelling.— E. B. B. 

What we call Life is a condition of the 
soul, and the soul must improve in happiness 
and wisdom, except by its own fault. These 
tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, 
will not hinder such improvement. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



MARCH. 



March ist 

Earth is a wintry clod ; 
But spring-wind, like a dancing psal tress, 

passes 
Over its breast to waken it ; rare verdure 
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of 

frost, 
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 
The grass grows bright, the boughs are 

swoln with blooms, 
. . . Above, birds fly in merry flocks — 

the lark 
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ; 
Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls 
Flit where the sand is purple with its tribe 
Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 
Their loves in wood and plain ; and God re- 
news 
His ancient rapture ! Thus He dwells in all, 



68 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

From life's minute beginnings, up at last 
To man — the consummation of this scheme 
Of being, the completion of this sphere 
Of life. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

March 2d. 
Here is Spring 
The sun shines as he shone at Adam's fall, 
The earth requires that warmth reach every- 
where : 
AVhy must your patch of snow be saved, for- 
sooth, 
Because you rather fancy snow than flowers ? 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

Every child will love the year's first flower, 

(Not certainly the fairest of the year, 

But, in which, the complete year seems to 

blow) 
The poor sad snowdrop, — growing between 

drifts, 
Mysterious medium 'twixt the plant and 

frost, 



FROM BROWNING 



So faint with winter while so quick with 

spring, 
So doubtful if to thaw itself away 
With that snow near it. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

March ^d. 
I charge thee, do not flatter me 
Through pity, with false words ! for, in my 

mind. 
Deceiving works more shame than torturing 
doth. 

Frometheus Bound. — E. B. B. 

Be calm. 
And smooth thy words from passion. Knowest 

thou not 
. . . That where the tongue wags, ruin 
never lags ? 

Ibid. 

Look up Godward ! speak the truth in 
Worthy song from earnest soul ! 
Hold, in high poetic duty. 
Truest truth the fairest beauty. 

The Dead Pan.— E. B. B. 



70 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

March 4th. 
It takes a soul 
To move a body : it takes a high souled man 
To move the masses . . . even to a cleaner 

stye: 
It takes the ideal, to blow a hair-breadth's 

off 
The dust of the actual. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

So others shall 
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, 
From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave 

cheer, 
And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 
The least flower, with a brimming cup, may 

stand 
And share its dewdrop with another near. 

Work.—^. B. B. 

March ^th. 
Oh, what a dawn of day ! 
How the March sun feels like May 1 



FROM BROWNING 71 

All is blue again 
After last night's rain, 
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. 
A Lovers^ Quarrel — R. B. 

When night overtakes me, down I lie, 
Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it, 
The sooner the better, to begin afresh. 
What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's 
faith? 

Bishop Blougrara's Apology. — R. B. 

We try and cull 
Briers, thistles, from our private plot, 
To mar God's ground where thorns are not ! 
Easter- Day. —R. B. 

March 6th. 

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, born March 6th, i8o6. 

The poet hath the child's sight in his breast. 
And sees all new. What oftenest he has 

viewed, 
He views with the first glory. Fair and good 
Pall never on him, at the fairest, best, 



72 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



But stand before him holy and undressed 
In week-day false conventions, such as would 
Drag other men down from the altitude 
Of primal types, too early dispossessed. 
Why, God would tire of all His heaven as 

soon 
As thou, O godlike, childlike poet, didst 
Of daily and nightly sights of sun and moon ! 
And therefore hath He set thee in the midst, 
Where men may hear thy wonder's ceaseless 

tune, 
And praise His world forever as thou bidst. 
The Foet—E. B. B. 

March yth. 

I classed, appraising once. 
Earth's lamentable sounds ; the well-a-day, 

The jarring yea and nay. 
The fall of kisses on unanswering clay. 
The sobbed farewell, the welcome mourn- 
fuller '— 

But all did leaven the air 
With a less bitter leaven of sure despair, 

Than these words — ** I loved once." 



FROM BROWNINO 73 

Say never, ye loved once / 

God is too near above, the grave, beneath, 

And all our moments breathe 
Too quick in mysteries of life and death. 

For such a word. The eternities avenge 

Affections light of range — 
There comes no change to justify that change, 

Whatever comes — loved once / 

Loved Once. — E. B. B. 



March 8th. 

A shaft from the devil's bow 

Pierced to our ingle-glow, 
And the friends were friend and foe ! 
Not from the heart beneath — 
'Twas a bubble born of breath, 

Neither sneer nor vaunt, 

Nor reproach nor taunt. 
See a word, how it severeth ! 

Oh, power of life and death 
In the tongue, as the Preacher saith ! 
A Lovers^ Quarrel. — R. B. 



74 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Evil or good may be better or worse 

In the human heart, but the mixture of each 

Is a marvel and a curse. 

Gold Hair : A Story of Pornic. — R. B. 

March gth. 

Robert Barrett Browning, only child of Robert and 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, born 

March 9th, 1849. 

And love was here 
As instant : in the pretty baby mouth, 
Shut close as if for dreaming that it sucked ; 
The little naked feet drawn up the way 
Of nestled birdlings ; everything so soft 
And tender, — to the tiny holdfast hands. 
Which, closing on the finger into sleep, 
Had kept the mould of 't. While we stood 

there dumb, 
. . . The light upon his eyelids pricked 

them wide, 
And, staring out at us with all their blue, 
As half perplexed between the angel -hood 
He had been away to visit in his sleep. 



FROM BROWNING 75 

And our most mortal presence, — gradually 
He saw his mother's face, accepting it 
In change for heaven itself, with such a smile 
As might have well been learnt there. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

March loth. 
Women know 
The way to rear up children, (to be just,) 
They know a simple, merry, tender knack 
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes. 
And stringing pretty words that make no 

sense. 
And kissing full sense into empty words : 
Which things are corals to cut life upon. 
Although such trifles : children learn by such 
Love's holy earnest in a pretty play, 
And get not over early solemnized. 
But seeing, as in a rosebush. Love's Divine, 
Which burns and hurts not, — not a single 

bloom, — 
Become aware and unafraid of Love. 
Such good do mothers. Fathers love as well, 



c 



76 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

— Mine did, I know, — but still with heavier 

brains, 
And wills more consciously responsible, 
And not as wisely, since less foolishly : 
So mothers have God's Hcense to be missed. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

March nth. 
Angels are less tender-wise 
Than God and mothers. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

You've the right to laugh, 
Since God Himself is for you, and a child ! 

Ibid. 

Shows her what's sweetest in womanly fate — 

Sunshine from Heaven, and the eyes of a 

child. 

Nature's Remorses. — E. B. B. 

May He of the manger stand near 

And love thee ! An infant He came 

To His own who rejected Him here 

But the Magi brought gifts all the same. 
Void in Law. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 77 

March 12th. 
I see my way as birds their trackless way — 
I shall arrive ! What time, what circuit 

first, 
I ask not : but unless God sends His hail 
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow. 
In some time — His good time — I shall arrive : 
He guides me and the bird. In His good 

time ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

And the httle birds sang east, and the little 

birds sang west. 
And but little thought was theirs, of the si- 
lent, antique years, 
In the building of their nest. 

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little 

birds sang west, 
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed 
around our incompleteness, — 
Round our restlessness. His rest. 
Rhyme of the Duchess 3Iay. — E. B. B. 



78 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

March ijth. 

As life wanes, all its cares, and strife, and 
toil, 

Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees 

Which grew by our youth's home — the wav- 
ing mass 

Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and 
dew — 

The morning swallows with their songs like 
words, — 

All these seem clear and only worth our 
thoughts. 

Pauline. — R- B. 

The happy children come to us, 

And look up in our faces : 
They ask us — Was it thus and thus. 

When we were in their places? 
We cannot speak : — we see anew 

The hills we used to live in ; 
And feel our mother's smile press through 

The kisses she is giving. 

2'he Cry of the Human, — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 79 

March 14th. 

I have taken quite to despise book-knowl- 
edge and its effect on the mind, — I mean 
when people live by it as most readers by pro- 
fession do, . . . cloistering their souls under 
these roofs made with heads, when they 
might be under the sky. Such people grow 
dark and narrow and low, with all their 
pains. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Hax- 
per & Brothers. 

Sublimest danger, over which none weeps. 
When any young wayfaring soul goes forth 
Alone, unconscious of the perilous road. 
The day-sun dazzling in his hmpid eyes, 
To thrust his own way, he an alien, through 
The world of books. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B, 

Good aims not always make good books ; 
Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling 
soils. 



80 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

March i^th. 
So when Spring comes, 
And sunshine comes again like an old smile, 
And the fresh waters, and awakened birds, 
And budding woods await us — I shall be 
Prepared, and we will go and think again. 
And all old loves shall come to us — but changed 
As some sweet thought which harsh words 

veiled before ; 
Feeling God loves us, and that all that errs. 
Is a strange dream which death will dissipate. 

Pauline. — R. B. 

Reap this life's success or failure ! Soon 

shall things be unperplexed 
And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie 

unravelled in the next. 

La Saisiaz. — R. B. 

March i6th. 
It's wiser being good than bad ; 

It's safer being meek than fierce; 
It's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 



FROM BROWNING 81 

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be stretched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 
Apparent Failure. — R. B. 

If we could wait ! The only fault's with time ; 
All men become good creatures : but so slow ! 

Luria. — R. B. 

March lyth. 
In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the 

power — 
And thus wx half-men struggle. At the end, 
God, I conclude, compensates. 

Andrea Del Sarto. — R. B. 

What we best conceive, we fail to speak. 
Wait, soul, until thy ashen garments fall ! 
And then resume thy broken strains, and seek 
Fit peroration. 

Insufficiency. — E. B. B. 



82 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

" Hearken, dear; 
There's too much abstract willing, purposing, 
In this poor world." 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

March i8th. 
A pure home 
To live in, a pure heart to lean against, 
A pure good mother's name and memory 
To hope by, when the world grows thick and 

bad. 
And he feels out for virtue. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

I thought a child was given to sanctify 
A woman, — set her in the sight of all 
The clear-eyed heavens, a chosen minister 
To do their business and lead spirits up 
The difficult blue heights. A woman lives, 
Not bettered, quickened toward the truth 

and good 
Through being a mother? . . . then she's 

none ! although 
She damps her baby's cheeks by kissing them. 

Ihid. 



FROM BROWNING 



March ipth. 
A beggar asked an alms 

One day at an abbey-door, 
Said Luther ; but, seized with qualms, 

The abbot replied, ** We're poor ! " 

Then the beggar, '' See your sins ! 

Of old, unless I err. 
Ye had brothers for inmates, twins. 

Date and Dabitur. 

" While Date was in good case 
Dabitur flourished too : 
For Dabitur' s lenten face 
No wonder if Date rue. 

" Would you retrieve the one ? 

Try and make plump the other ! 
When Date's penance is done, 
Dabitur helps his brother." 

The Twins: '^ Give** and ^' It-shall-be-givenunto- 
yoM."— R. B. 



84 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

March 20th. 

It is in truth 
An easy thing to stand aloof from pain, 
And lavish exhortation and advice 
On one vexed sorely by it. 

Prometheus Bound. — E. B. B. 

Being observed, 
When observation is not sympathy, 
Is just being tortured. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Do you hear the children weeping and dis- 
proving, 
O my brothers, what ye preach ? 
For God's possible is taught by His world's 
loving, — 
And the children doubt of each. 

The Cry of the Children.— E. B. B. 

March 21st 
You fool, for all 
Your lore ! Who made things plain in vain ? 
What was the sea for ? What, the grey 
Sad Church, that solitary day, 



FROM BROWNING 85 



Crosses and graves and swallows' call ? 

Was there naught better than to enjoy ? 

No feat which, done, would make time break, 

And let us pent-up creatures through 

Into eternity, our due ? 

No forcing earth teach heaven's employ ? 

Di8 Aliter Visun. — R. B. 

'Twixt the dying atheist's negative 
And God's face . . . waiting, after all. 
First News from Villa-Franca. — E. B. B. 

March 22d. 
"There is none good sav^e God," said Jesus 

Christ. 
If He once, in the first creation-week, 
Called creatures good, — forever afterward, 
The devil only has done it, and his heirs. 

The word's grown dangerous. In 

the middle age, 
I think they called malignant fays and imps 
Good people. A good neighbor, even in 

this. 
Is fatal sometimes, — cuts your morning up 



86 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

To mincemeat of the very smallest talk, 
Then helps to sugar her bohea at night 
With your reputation. . . . And we all have 

known 
Good critics who have stamped out poet's 

hopes ; 
Good statesmen who pulled ruin on the state ; 
Good patriots who for a theory risked a 

cause ; 
Good kings who disembowelled for a tax ; 
Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy ; 
Good Christians who sat still in easy-chairs 
And damned the general world for standing 

up,— 

Now may the good God pardon all good 

men ! 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

March 2^d. 
May spilt milk be put back within the bowl — 
The thing done, undone ? . . . 
Since milk, though spilt and spoilt, does 

marble good, 
Better we down on knees and scrub the floor, 



FROM BROWNING 87 

Than sigh, ''the waste would make a sylla- 
bub ! " 
Help us so turn disaster to account. 

The Ring and the Book.—E. B. B. 
. . . how to fill a breach 
With olive branches ; how to quench a lie 
With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek 
With Christ's most conquering kiss ! 

Casa Guidi Windows.^-E. B. B. 

March 24th. 
The works of v/omen are symbolical. 
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, 
Producing what ? A pair of slippers, sir. 
To put on when you're weary — or a stool 
To tumble over and vex you . . . "curse 

that stool ! " 
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean 
And sleep, and dream of something we are not, 
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! 
This hurts most, this . . . that, after all, we 

are paid 
The worth of our work, perhaps. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



88 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Most illogical 
Irrational nature of our womanhood, 
That blushes one way, feels another way. 
And prays, perhaps, another ! 

lUd. 

March 2^th. 
In the set noon of time, shall one from 

Heaven, 
An angel fresh from looking upon God, 
Descend upon a woman, blessing her 
With perfect benediction of pure love, 
For all the world in all its elements ; 
For all the creatures of earth, air, and sea ; 
For all men in the body and in the soul. 
Unto all ends of glory and sanctity. 

Eve. O pale, pathetic Christ, — I worship 

Thee! 
I thank Thee for that woman ! 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

My flesh ! my Lord ! — what name? I do not 

know 
A name that seemeth not too high or low, 



FROM BROWNING 89 



Too far from me or Heaven. 

My Jesus, that is best ! that word being 

given 
By the majestic angel. 

The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus. — E. B. B. 

March 26th. 

Who's the martyred man ? 

Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he 

can ! 
He that strove thus evil's lump to leaven, 
Let him give his blood at last and get his 

heaven ! 
All or nothing, stake it ! Trusts he God or 

no? 
Thus far and no farther? farther? be it 
so! 

Before.— R. B. 

Was it not great ? did he not throw on God, 
(He loves the burthen) — 

God's task to make the heavenly period 
Perfect the earthen ? 



90 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

He ventured neck or nothing — 

heaven's success 
Found, or earth's failure : 
**Wilt thou trust death or not?" He an- 
swered '' Yes ! 
Hence with hfe's pale lure ! " 
A Grammarian^ s Funeral — R. B. 

March 2yth. 
All passive obedience and implicit submis- 
sion of will and intellect is by far too easy, 
if well considered, to be the course prescribed 
by God to Man in this life of probation, — 
for they evade probation altogether, though 
foolish people think otherwise. Chop off 
)'our legs, you will never go astray; stifle 
your reason altogether and you will find it 
difficult to reason ill. '' It is hard to make 
these sacrifices," — not so hard as to lose the 
reward or incur the penalty of an Eternity to 
come; ^' hard to effect them, then, and go 
through with them " — not hard, when the 
leg is to be cut off, that it is rather harder to 



FROM BROWNING 91 

keep it quiet on a stool, I know very well. 
The partial indulgence, the proper exercise 
of one's faculties, there is the difficulty and 
problem for solution. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brothers. 

March 28th. 

*' Renounce the world ! " — Ah were it done 
By merely cutting one by one 
Your limbs off, with your wise head last, 
How easy Avere it ! how soon past, 
If once in the believing mood ! 

'Such is man's usual gratitude. 
Such thanks to God do we return. 
For not exacting that we spurn 
A single gift of life, forego 
One real gain, — only taste them so 
With gravity and temperance, 
That those mild virtues may enhance 
Such pleasures, rather than abstract — 
Last spice of which, will be the fact 



92 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Of love discerned in every gift ; 
. . . God's dispensation's merciful." 
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B. 

March 29th. 

Providence . . . might have made the 
laws of Religion as indubitable as those of 
vitality, and revealed the articles of belief as 
certainly as that condition, for instance, by 
which we breathe so many times in a minute 
to support life. But there is no reward pro- 
posed for the feat of breathing, and a great 
one for that of believing — consequently there 
must go a great deal more of voluntary effort 
to this latter than is implied in the getting 
absolutely rid of it at once, by adopting the 
direction of an infallible church, or private 
judgment of another — for all our life is some 
form of religion, and all our action some be- 
lief, and there is but one law, however modi- 
fied, for the greater and the less. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliz- 
abeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 



FB03I BROWNING 93 

March joth. 
Music, (which is earnest of a heaven, 
Seeing we know emotions strange by it, 
Not else to be revealed,) is as a voice, 
A low voice calUng Fancy, as a friend, 
To the green woods in the gay summer time. 
And she fills all the way with dancing shapes. 
Which have made painters pale; and they 

go on 
While stars look at them, and winds call to 

them. 
As they leave life's path for the twilight world. 
Where the dead gather. 

Pauline. — R. B. 

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to 

clear. 
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the 

weal and woe ; 
But God has a few of us whom He whispers 

in the ear ; 

The rest may reason and welcome : 'tis we 

musicians know. 

Aht Vogler.~R. B. 



94 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

March jist 
Ador. Do we love not ? 
Zerah. Yea, 
But not as man shall ! not with life for death, 
. . . Nor yet with speechless memories of 

what 
Earth's winters were, enverduring the green 
Of every heavenly palm 
Whose windless, shadeless calm 
Moves only at the breath of the Unseen. 
Oh, not with this blood on us — and this 

face, — 
Still, haply pale with sorrow that it bore 
In our behalf, and tender evermore 
With nature all our own, upon us gazing ! 
Nor yet with these forgiving hands upraising 
Their unreproachful wounds, alone to bless ! 

Ador. Love Him more, O man, 
Than sinless seraphs can. 

TJie Seraphim.— E. B. B. 



APRIL. 



April I St. 

Winter 

Crept aged from the earth, and Spring's first 
breath 

Blew soft from the moist hills — the black- 
thorn boughs, 

So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 

In the sunshine, were white with coming 
buds, 

Like the bright side of a sorrow — and the 
banks 

Had violets opening from sleep like eyes — 
Pauline.— E. B. B. 

" O God's earth ! " he saith, " the sign 
From the Father-soul to mine 
Of all beauteous mysteries. 
Of all perfect images, 
Which, divine in His divine, 



BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



In my human only are 

Very excellent and fair : — 

. . . Earth, I praise thee ! " 

Earth and Her Praisers. — E. B. B. 

/ipril 2d. 
Then, at last, 
I, wrapping round me your humanity, 
Which being sustained, shall neither break 

nor burn 
Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth. 
And ransom you and it, and set strong peace 
Betwixt you and its creatures. With my 

pangs 
I will confront your sins : and since those 

sins 
Have sunken to all nature's heart from yours. 
The tears of my clean soul shall follow them 
And set a holy passion to work clear 
Absolute consecration. In my brow 
Of kingly whiteness, shall be crowned anew 
Your discrowned human nature. Look on 

me I 



FEOM BROWNING 



As I shall be uplifted on a cross 

In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread, 

So shall I lift up in my pierced hands, 

Not into dark, but light — not unto death, 

But life, beyond the reach of guilt and grief. 

The whole creation. Henceforth in my name 

Take courage, O thou woman, — man, take 

hope! 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

April jd. 
Thy love 
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes 
After its own Hfe- working. A child's kiss 
Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad ; 
A poor man served by thee, shall make thee 

rich ; 
A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee 

strong ; 
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 
Of service which thou renderest. 

A Drama of Exile. — E. B. B. 

Man calls thee, God requites thee. 

Luria. — R. B. 



t..fC. 



100 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

It is very good for strength 
To know that some one needs you to be 
strong. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

April 4th. 
You are Christians; somehow, no one ever 

plucked 
A rag, even, from the body of the Lord, 
To wear and mock with, but despite himself, 
He looked the greater and was the better. 
The Ring and the Booh. — R. B. 

'Twas a thief said the last kind word to 

Christ : 

Christ took the kindness and forgave the 

theft. 

Ibid. 

We worship in Thy sorrow, Saviour, Christ. 
A Drama of Exile.— 'E^. B. B. 

In His face 
Is light, but in His shadow healing too. 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



FEOM BROWNING 101 

April ^th. 
That martyr-gash 
Fell on Thee coming to take Thine own, 
And we gave the Cross, when we owed the 
throne. 

Holy-Cross Day. — R. B. 

So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too — 
So, through the thunder comes a human 

voice 
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats 

here ! 
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in Myself ! 
Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of 

Mine ; 
But love I gave thee, with Myself to love, 
And thou must love Me who have died for 

thee." 

An Epistle of Karshish. — R. B. 

April 6th. 
God, above the starlight, 
God, above the patience, 
Shall at last present ye 



102 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Guerdons worth the cost. 
Patiently enduring, 
Painfully surrounded, 
. . . Hope the uttermost. 

A Drama of Exile.— 'E. B. B. 

If I stoop 
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, 
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 
Close to my breast — its splendor, soon or 

late, 
Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one 
day ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

y4pril yth. 
*^He who did most, shall bear most; the 

strongest shall stand the most weak. 
'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! 

my flesh, that I seek. 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O 

Saul, it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a 

Man like to me, 



FBOM BROWNING 103 

Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ; a 

Hand like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to 

thee ! See the Christ stand ! ' ' 

Saul—K. B. 

Henceforth no certainty more plain 
Than this mere surmise that after body dies 

soul lives again. 
Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are 

now increased to three — 
God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after 

death shall be. 

La Saiaiaz. — R. B. 

April 8th. 
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not 
More grief than ye can weep for. That is 

well — 
That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell. 
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot. 
Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in 

its cot, 



104 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The mother singing ; at her marriage-bell 
The bride weeps ; and before the oracle 
Of high-faned hills, the poet has forgot 
Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God 

for grace, 
Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done, 
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place 
And touch but tombs, — look up ! Those 

tears will run 
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face, 
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun. 

7fears.— E. B. B. 

April gth. 
Rise, woman, rise. 
To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill. 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, 
And reconciling all that ill and good 
Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 
Rise with thy daughters ! If sin come by 

thee, 
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteous- 
ness, 



FROM BROWNING 105 

The heavenly life and compensative rest 

Shall come by means of thee. If woe by 
thee 

Had issued to the world, thou shalt go forth 

An angel of the woe thou didst achieve ; 

Be satisfied ; 

Something thou hast to bear through woman- 
hood — 

Peculiar suffering answering to the sin ; 

Some pang paid down for each new human 
life; 

Some weariness in guarding such a life — 

Some coldness from the guarded. . . . 
A Drama of Exile. — E. B. B. 

April loth. 
Shall we, then, who have issued from the 

dust. 
And there return — shall we, who toil for 

dust. 
And wrap our winnings in this dusty life. 
Say, '' No more tears, Lord God ! 
The measure runneth o'er ! " 



106 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Oh, holder of the balance, laughest Thou ? 
Nay, Lord ! Be gentler to our foolishness, 
For His sake who assumed our dust and turns 
On Thee pathetic eyes 
Still moistened with our tears ! 

And teach us, O our Father, while we 

weep. 
To look in patience upon earth and learn. 
The Measure.—^. B. B. 

April iith. 
Jesus, Victim, comprehending 

Love's divine self-abnegation, 
Cleanse my love in self-spending, 
And absorb the poor libation ! 
Wind my thread of life up higher, 

Up, through angels' hands of fire ! 
I aspire while I expire ! 

Bertha in the Lane. — E. B. B. 

From the low earth round you. 

Reach the heights above you ; 
From the stripes that wound you. 



FROM BROWNING 107 

Seek the loves that love you ! 
God's divinest burneth plain. 

A Drmna of Exile.— E. B. B. 

y4prtl 1 2th. 
Call them back, 
Back to Thee in continuous aspiration ! For 

here, O Lord, 
For here they vainly travel, — vainly pass 
From the city pavement to untrodden sward, 
Where the lark finds her deep nest in the 

grass 
Cold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very 

vain 
The greatest speed of all the souls of men, 
Unless they travel upward to the throne 
Where sittest Thou, the satisfying One, 
With help for sins and holy perfectings 
For all requirements — while the archangel, 

raising 
Unto Thy face his full estatic gazing, 
Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings. 
The SouVs Travelling.— E. B. B. 



108 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Our God, who is the enemy of none, 
But only of their sin. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

April ijth. 
Weep ? Weep blood, 
All women, all men ! 
He sweated it, I/e — 

The Seraphim.^E. B. B. 

** Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, 

Him 
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to 

hfe? 
What should wring this from thee? " ye laugh 

and ask. 
What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a 

noise, 
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands. 
And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just 

that, 
And it is written, " I forsook and fled." 
There was my trial, and it ended thus. 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 109 

April 14th. 
Because my portion was assigned 
Wholesome and bitter — Thou art kind 
And I am blessed to my mind. 

In my large joy of sight and touch 
Beyond what others count for such, 
I am content to suffer much. 

Let the bloom 
Of Life grow over, undenied, 
This Bridge of Death, which is not wide — 
I shall soon be at the other side. 

Glory to God — to God ! he saith — 
Knowledge by suffering endureth ; 
And Life is perfected by Death ! 

A Vision of Poets.— E. B. B. 

April i^th. 
Does the precept run " Believe in good, 
In justice, truth, now understood 
For the first time? " — or, '' Believe in Me, 
Who lived and died, yet essentially 



108 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Our God, who is the enemy of none, 
But only of their sin. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B, B. 

April ijth. 
Weep ? Weep blood, 
All women, all men ! 
He sweated it, He — 

The Seraphim. — E. B. B. 

" Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured. 

Him 
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to 

hfe? 
What should wring this from thee? " ye laugh 

and ask. 
What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a 

noise, 
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands. 
And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just 

that. 
And it is written, " I forsook and fled." 
There was my trial, and it ended thus. 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 109 

April 14th. 
Because my portion was assigned 
Wholesome and bitter — Thou art kind 
And I am blessed to my mind. 

In my large joy of sight and touch 
Beyond what others count for such, 
I am content to suffer much. 

Let the bloom 
Of Life grow over, un denied, 
This Bridge of Death, which is not wide — 
I shall soon be at the other side. 

Glory to God— to God ! he saith — 
Knowledge by suffering endureth ; 
And Life is perfected by Death ! 

A Vision of Poets.— E. B. B. 

April i^th. 
Does the precept run " Believe in good. 
In justice, truth, now understood 
For the first time? " — or, *' Believe in Me, 
Who lived and died, yet essentially 



112 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

. Just that hope, however scant, 

Makes the actual hfe worth leading ; take 
the hope therein away. 

All we have to do is surely not endure an- 
other day. 

This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that 
promise joy : life done — 

Out of all the hopes, how many had com- 
plete fulfillment ? none. 

''But the soul is not the body: " and the 
breath is not the flute. 

La Saisiaz. — R. B. 



y4pril i8th. 

I cling with my mind 



To the same, same self, same love, same 
God : ay, what was, shall be. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the 
ineffable Name ? 
Builder and Maker, Thou, of houses not 
made with hands ! 
What, have fear of change from Thee who 
art ever the same ? 



FROM BROWNING 113 

Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart 
that Thy power expands ? 
There shall never be one lost good ! What 
was, shall live as before, 
The evil is null, is nought, is silence im- 
plying sound ; 
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, 
so much good more ; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the 
heaven, a perfect round. 

AU Vogler.—R. B. 

Thou waitedst age : . wait death nor be 
afraid ! 

Babbi Ben Ezra.—R. B. 



y^pril igth. 
O we live, O we live — 
And this life that we conceive 
Is a clear thing and a fair. 
Which we set in crystal air 
That its beauty may be plain : 



114 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

With a breathing and a flooding 
Of the heaven -life on the whole, 
While we hear the forests budding 
To the music of the soul — 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

Wishing thee wholly 

Within the eventual element of calm. 

Cleon.—K. B. 

April 20th. 
Overhead the tree-tops meet, 
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 
There was nought above me, nought below, 
My childhood had not learned to know : 
For, what are the voices of birds 
— Ay, and of beasts, — but words, our words. 
Only so much more sweet ? 
The knowledge of that with my life begun. 
But I had so near made out the sun, 
And counted your stars, the seven and one, 
Like the fingers of my hand : 
Nay, I could all but understand 



FROM BROWNING 115 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon 

ranges ; 
And just when out of her soft fifty changes 
No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 
Suddenly God took me. 

Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

/Ipril 2 1 St. 
*' I say that man was made to grow, not stop ; 
That help, he needed once, and needs no 

more, 
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn : 
Fo r he hath new needs, and new helps to 

these. 
This imports solely, man should mount on 

each 
New height in view ; the help whereby he 

mounts, 
The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall. 
Since all things suffer change save God the 

Truth. 
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage 
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done; 



116 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And nothing shall prove twice what once 

was proved. 
. . What ? Was man made a wheelwork 

to wind up, 
And be discharged, and straight wound up 

anew? 
No ! — grown, his growth lasts ; taught, he 

ne'er forgets : 
May learn a thousand things, not twice the 

same." 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

April 22d. 
"I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, 
Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself, 
So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with 

truth : 
When they can eat, babe's nurture is with- 
drawn. 
I fed the babe whether it would or no : 
I bid the boy or feed himself or starve. 
I cried once, * That ye may believe in 
Christ, 



FROM BROWNING 117 

Behold this bhnd man shall receive his 

sight ! ' 
I cry now, * Urgest thou, for I am shrewd 
And smile at stories how JoJm' s word could 

cure — 
Repeat that miracle and take my faith ? ' 
I say, that miracle was duly wrought 
When, save for it, no faith was possible. 

. I say, the acknowledgment of God 

in Christ 
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
All questions in the earth and out of it." 
A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

April 2jd. 
We are borne into life — it is sweet, it is 

strange ! 
We lie still on the knee of a mild Mystery, 

Which smile with a change ! 
But we doubt not of changes, we know not of 

spaces ; 
The Heavens seem as near as our own 
mother's face is, 



118 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And we think we could touch all the stars 

that we see ; 
And the milk of our mother is white on our 

mouth ! 
And with small childish hands, we are turn- 
ing around 
The apple of Life which another has 

found j 
It is warm with our touch, not with sun of 

the south, 
And we count, as we turn it, the red side for 
four — 
O Life, O Beyond, 
Thou art sweet, thou art strange evermore. 

And the birds sing like angels, so 
mystical fine ; 
And the cedars are brushing the archangel's 

feet; 
And time is eternity, love is divine, 
And the world is complete. 
Now God bless the child, — father, mother, 
respond ! 

A Rhapsody of Lifers Progress. — E. B. B. 



FE03I BROWNING 119 

April 24th. 
Free Heart, that singest to-day, 
Like a bird on the first green spray ; 
Wilt thou go forth to the world ? 

Who calleth thee, Heart ? World's strife, 
With a golden heft to his knife j 
World's Mirth, with a finger fine 
That draws on a board in wine 

Her blood-red plans of life ; 
World's Gain, with a brow knit down : 
World's Fame, with a laurel crown. 
Which rustles most as the leaves turn brown — 

Heart, wilt thou go ? 
— "No, no ! 

Calm hearts are wiser so." 

Calls on the Heart— "E.. B. B. 

April 2^th. 
Be sure that God 
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns 

impart ! 
. . . Be sure they sleep not whom God needs. 
Paracelsus- — R. B. 



120 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

I know Thee, who hast kept my path, and 

made 
Light for me in the darkness — tempering 

sorrow, 
So that it reached me Hke a solemn joy ; 
It were too strange that I should doubt Thy 

love: 

the quiet place beside Thy feet, 
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts. 

Ibid. 

A real heaven in his heart throughout his 
life. 

Bishop Blougram's Apology. — R. B, 

April 26th. 
Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat 
Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast ; 
And by them, we find rest in our unrest, 
And heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat 
God's fellowship, as if on heavenly seat. 
The first is Jesus wept, whereon is prest 
Full many a sobbing face that drops its best 
And sweetest waters on the record sweet : 



FBOM BROWNING 121 

And one is, where the Christ denied and 

scorned 
Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain, 
By help of having loved a little and mourned, 
That look of sovran love and sovran pain 
Which He who could not sin yet suffered, 

turned 
On him who could reject but not sustain ! 
The Two Sayings.— E. B. B. 

Aprt'l 2yth. 

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no 
word — 

No gesture of reproach ! The heavens se- 
rene 

Though heavy with armed justice, did not 
lean 

Their thunders that way. The forsaken Lord 

Looked only, on the traitor. None record 

What that look was ; none guess ; for those 
who have seen 

Wronged lovers loving through a death- 
pang keen. 



122 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword, 
Have missed Jehovah at the judgment-call. 
And Peter, from the height of blasphemy — 
'* I never knew this man " did quail and fall, 
As knowing straight that God, — and turned 

free 
And went out speechless from the face of all, 
And filled the silence, weeping bitterly. 

The Look.—E. B. B. 

April 28th. 
I think that look of Christ might seem to say — 
** Thou Peter ! art thou then a common stone 
Which I at last must break my heart upon. 
For all God's charge to His high angels may 
Guard my foot better ? Did I yesterday 
Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should 

run 
Quick to deny Me 'neath the morning sun. 
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray ? 
The cock crows coldly. — Go and manifest 
A late contrition, but no bootless fear ! 
For when thy final need's dreariest. 



FROM BROWNING 123 

Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here. 
My voice, to God and angels, shall attest. 
Because I know this ma?i, let him be clears 
The Meaning^ of the Look. — E. B. B. 

April 2gth. 
Because a man has a shop to mind 
In time and place, since flesh must live, 
Needs spirit lack all life behind, 
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive, 
All loves except what trade can give ? 

I want to know a butcher paints, 
A baker rhymes for his pursuit, 
Candlestick-maker much acquaints 
His soul with song, or, haply mute, 
Blows out his brains upon the flute ! 

But — shop each day and all day long ! 
Friend, your good angel slept, your star 
Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong ! 
From where these sorts of treasures are, 
There should our hearts be — Christ, how 
far! 

Shop.—K. B. 



124 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

April joth. 

Observe — <</" means in youth 
Just / . . . the conscious and eternal soul 
With all its ends, — and not the outside life 
The parcel-man, the doublet of the flesh, 
The so much liver, lung, integument, 
Which makes the sum of ''I" hereafter 

when 
World-talkers talk of doing well or ill. 
/ prosper, if I gain a step, although 
A nail then pierced my foot : although my 

brain 
Embracing any truth froze paralyzed, 
/prosper. I but change my instrument; 
I break the spade off, digging deep for gold. 
And catch the mattock up. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B, 

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 
That's spirit : though cloistered fast, soar 
free. 

A Wall.—R. B. 



MAY. 



May I St. 

And after April, when May follows 

And the white-throat builds, and all the 

swallows ! 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the 

hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the 

clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's 

edge — 
That's the wise thrush : he sings each song 

twice over 
Lest you think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture ! 
And though the fields look rough with hoary 

dew, 
And will be gay when noontide wakes 

anew 
The buttercups, the little children's dower. 
Home- Thoughts, from Abroad. — R. B. 



128 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Such a starved bank of moss 

Till, that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across : 

Violets were born ! 

Apparitions. — R. B. 

May 2d. 

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 

A mite of my twelve-hours' treasure, 

The least of thy gazes or glances, 

(Be they grants thou art bound to, or gifts 
above measure,) 

One of thy choices, or one of thy chances, 

(Be they tasks God imposed thee, or freaks 
at thy pleasure) 

— My Day, if I squander such labor or lei- 
sure, 

Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flow- 
ing, 

Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and 
good — 



FROM BROWNING 129 

Thy fitful sunshine minutes, coming, going. 
In which, earth turns from work in game- 
some mood — 

All shall be mine ! 

Pij^a Passes. — R. B. 

May jd. 
He felt in nature's broad 
Full heart, his own was free. 

The Romaunt of the Page. — E. B. B. 

Indeed we live beneath the sky, 

That great smooth Hand of God stretched out 

On all His children fatherly, 
To save them from the dread and doubt 
Which would be, if, from this low place, 
All opened straight up to His face 

Into the grand eternity. 

The Runaway Slave. — E. B. B. 

I wakened, opened wide 
The window and my soul, and let the airs 
And outdoor sights sweep gradual gospels in, 
Regenerating what I was. 

Aurora Leigh — E. B. B. 



130 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

May 4th. 
So we are made, such difference in minds, 
Such difference too in eyes that see the minds ! 
That man, you misinterpret and misprize — 
The glory of his nature, I had thought, 
Shot itself out in white light, blazed the truth 
Through every atom of his act with me : 
Yet where I point you, through the crystal 

shrine, 
Purity in quintessence, one dewdrop, 
You all descry a spider in the midst. 
One says, "The head of it is plain to see," 
And one, ''They are the feet by which I 

judge." 
All say, ''Those films were spun by nothing 

else. ' ' 
. . . Yes, my last breath shall wholly 

spend itself 
In one attempt more to disperse the stain. 
The mist from other breath fond mouths have 

made. 
About a lustrous and pellucid soul. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 131 

May ^th. 
Poor vaunt of life indeed, 
Were man but formed to feed 
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast : 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt 
the maw-crammed beast ? 

Rejoice we are allied 

To that which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive ! 

A spark disturbs our clod ; 

Nearer we hold of God 
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I 
must believe. 

Then welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! 

Be our joy three-parts pain ! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never 
grudge the throe ! 

BabU Ben Ezra.—R. B. 



132 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

May 6th, 
You're my friend — 
What a thing friendship is, world without 

end ! 
How it gives the heart and the soul a stir- 
up. .. . 

The Flight of the Duchess.— R. B. 

The heart, which Hke a staff, was one 
For mine to lean and rest upon ; 
The strongest on the longest day 
With steadfast love. ... 

De Profundis.—E. B. B. 

Steadfast friend. 
Who never didst my heart or life misknow. 
Nor either's faults too keenly apprehend. 

Hugh Stuart Boyd.—E. B. B. 

May yth. 

Robert Browning, born May 7th, 1806. 

Sun -tread er, I believe in God, and truth, 
And love; and as one just escaped from 
death 



FROM BROWNING 133 



Would bind himself in bands of friends to 

feel 
He lives indeed — so, would I lean on thee ; 
Thou must be ever with me — most in gloom 
When such shall come ; . . . and live thou 

forever, 
And be to all what thou hast been to me. 

Pauline. — R. B. 

One who never turned his back but marched 
breast forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, 

wrong would triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 
Sleep to wake. 

Asolando. — R. B. 

May 8th. 
Who was as calm as beauty — being such 
Unto mankind as thou . . . 
Believing in them, and devoting all 
His soul's strength to their winning back to 
peace ; 



134 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Who sent forth hopes and longings for their 

sake, 
Clothed in all passion's melodies, . . . 
And woven with them there were words, 

which seemed 
A key to a new world ; the muttering 
Of angels, of some thing unguessed by man. 

Pauline. — R. B. 

The singleness of soul that made me proud, 
The purity of heart I loved aloud, 
The man's-truth I was bold to bid God see. 
Any Wife to Any Husband. — R. B. 

May pth. 
. . . who here the greater task achieve. 
More needful even : who have brought fresh 

stuff 
For us to mould, interpret and prove right, — 
New feeling fresh from God, which, could 

we know 
O' the instant, where had been our need of it ? 
— Whose life re-teaches us what life should 

be, 



FB03I BROWNING 135 

What faith is, loyalty and simpleness, 
All, once revealed but taught us so long since 
That, having mere tradition of the fact, — 
Truth copied falteringly from copies faint. 
The early traits all dropped away, — we said 
On sight of faith like yours, ''So looks not 

faith 
We understand, described and praised be- 
fore." 
But still the feat was dared; and . . . trace 

by trace 
Old memories reappear, old truths return, 
Our slow thought does its work, and all's 
re-known. 

Luria. — R. B. 

May loth. 
Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified 
That living men who burn in heart and brain, 
Without the dead were colder. If we tried 
To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure 
The future would not stand. . . . 
Behold, they shall not fail. . . . The world 
shows nothing lost ! 



136 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Therefore not blood ! above or underneath, 
What matter, brothers, if ye keep your 

post 
On duty's side ? As sword returns to sheath. 
So dust to grave, but souls find place in 

Heaven. 
Heroic daring is the true success, 
The eucharistic bread requires no leaven ; 
And though your ends were hopeless, we 

should bless 
Your cause as holy ! Strive — and having 

striven, 
Take, for God's recompense, that righteous- 
ness ! 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B, B, 

May nth. 
Love, if you knew the light 
That your soul casts in my sight, 
How I look to you 
For the pure and true. 
And the beauteous and the right. 

A Lovers^ Qnarrel. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 137 

What if God had sent her here 
Less for action than for Being ? 
For the eye and for the ear. 

Just to show what beauty may, 
Just to prove what music can, — 
And then to die away, 
From the presence of a man, 
Who shall learn, henceforth, to pray ? 
Where's Agnes ?—E. B. B. 

May 1 2th. 

I have my support again. 

Again the knowledge that my babe was, is, 

Will be mine only. Him, by death, I give 

Outright to God, without a further care, — 

So to be safe : why is it we repine ? 

What guardianship were safer could we 

choose ? 

All human plans and projects come to 

nought, 

My life, and what I know of other lives. 

Prove that : no plan nor project ! God shall 

care ! 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



138 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death, 
Through struggle made more glorious : 

The mother stills her sobbing breath, 
Renouncing, yet victorious. 

A Child's Grave at Florence.— E. B. B. 

May ijth. 
For say a foolish thing but oft enough 
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds, 
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, 
By reiteration chiefly,) the same thing 
Shall pass at last for absolutely wise, 
And not with fools exclusively. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Learn one lesson hence 
Of many which whatever lives should teach : 
This lesson, that our human speech is nought. 
Our human testimony false, our fame 
And human estimation words and wind. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

May 14th. 
But I do not forgive him for talking here 
against the " ideals of poets " . . . opposing 



FROM BROWNING 139 

their ideal by a mis-called reality, which is 
another sort, a baser sort, of ideal after all. 
He sees things in broad blazing lights — but 
he does not analyze them like a philosopher 
— do you think so ? Then his praise for 
dumb heroic action as opposed to speech and 
singing, what is that — when all earnest 
thought, passion, belief, and their utter- 
ances, are as much actions surely as the 
cutting off of fifty heads by one right hand. 
As if Shakespeare's actions were not greater 
than Cromwell's ! 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett^ Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

May i^th. 
Our best is bad, nor bears Thy test j 
Still, it should be our very best. 
I thought it best that Thou, the spirit, 
Be worshipped in spirit and in truth, 
And in beauty, as even we require it — 
Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth . . . 



140 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

But all I felt there, right or wrong, 

What is it to Thee, who curest sinning? 

Am I not weak as Thou art strong ? 

I have looked to Thee from the beginning. 

Straight up to Thee through all the world 

Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled 

To nothingness on either side : 

And since the time Thou wast descried, 

Spite of the weak heart, so have I 

Lived ever, and so fain would die. 

Living and dying, Thee before ! 

Christmas- Eve and Easter- Day. — R. B. 

May 1 6th. 

The brightest place in the house is the 
leaning out of the window. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 

Up for the glowing day — leave the old 

woods : 
See, they part, like a ruined arch, the sky ! 
Nothing but sky appears, so close the root 



FROM BROWNING 141 

And grass of the hilltop level with the air — 
Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats. 
. . . Air, air — fresh life-blood — thin and 

searching air — 
The clear, dear breath of God that loveth 

us : 
Where small birds reel and winds take their 

delight. 
Water is beautiful, but not like air. 

Pauline. — R. B. 

May lyih. 
Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, 
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee 

so, 
A^^ho art not missed by any that entreat. 
Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet, — 
And if no precious gums my hands bestow, 
Let my tears drop like amber, while I go 
In reach of Thy divinest voice complete 
In humanest affection — thus in sooth. 
To lose the sense of losing ! As a child, 



142 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Whose song-bird seeks the wood forever- 
more, 
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth ; 
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, 
He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 

Comfort— Y.. B. B. 

May i8th. 
This world, 
This finite life, thou hast preferred, 
In disbelief of God's own word, 
To heaven and to infinity. 
Here the probation was for thee. 
To show thy soul the earthy mixed 
With heavenly, it must choose betwixt. 
The earthly joys lay palpable, — 
A taint in each, distinct as well ; 
The heavenly flitted, faint and rare. 
Above them, but as truly were 
Taintless, so, in their nature, best. 
Thy choice was earth ; thou didst attest 
'Twas fitter spirit should subserve 
The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve 



FROM BROWNING 143 

Beneath the spirit's play. Advance 
No claim to their inheritance 
Who chose the spirit's fugitive 
Brief gleams. 

Easter-Day.— R. B. 

May iplh. 
My future will not copy fair my past 
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done, 
Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one 
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast 
Upon the fullness of the heart, at last 
Says no grace after meat. My wine hath 

run 
Indeed out of my cup, and there is none 
To gather up the bread of my repast 
Scattered and trampled; — yet I find some 

good 
In earth's green herbs and springs that bubble 

up 
Clear from the darkling ground, — content 

until 
I sit with angels before better food. 



144 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Dear Christ ! when Thy new vintage fills my 

cup, 
This hand shall shake no more, nor that wine 

spill. 

Past and Future. — E. B. B. 



May 20th. 

It must oft fall out 
That one whose labor perfects any work, 
Shall rise from it with eye so worn, that he 
Of all men least can measure the extent 
Of what he has accomplished. He alone, 
Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary 

too. 
Can clearly scan the little he effects : 
But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, 
Estimate each aright. 

ParaceUus. — R. B. 

Better far 
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means, 
Than a sublime art frivolously. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 145 

May 21 St. 
Youth ended, I shall try 
My gain or loss thereby ; 
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 
And I shall weigh the same, 
Give life its praise or blame : 
Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall know, be- 
ing old. 

Rdbhi Ben Ezra.—R. B. 

That day, the earth's feast-master's brow 
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising ; 
<' Others give best at first, but Thou 
Forever set'st our table praising, 
Keep'st the good wine till now ! " 

Popularity. — R. B. 

Let age approve of youth, and death com- 
plete the same ! 

Rabbi Ben Ezra.—K. B. 

May 22d. 
Face and figure of a child, — 

Though too calm, you think, and tender, 
For the childhood you would lend her 



146 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And her smile, it seems half holy, 
As if drawn from thoughts more fair 
Than our common jestings are. 

And all fancies yearn to cover 

The hard earth on which she passes, 
With the thymy scented grasses. 

And all hearts do pray, *' God love her ! " 
Ay, and always, in good sooth, 
We may all be sure He doth. 

A Portrait.—^. B. B. 

May 2jd. 
Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit, 
Mere imitation of the inimitable : 
In heaven we have the real and true and sure. 
'Tis there they neither marry nor are given 
In marriage but are as the angels : right. 
Oh how right that is, how like Jesus Christ 
To say that ! Marriage-making for the earth. 
With gold so much, — birth, power, repute so 

much, 
Or beauty, youth, so much, in lack of these ! 



FEOM BROWNING 147 

Be as the angels rather, who, apart. 

Know themselves into one, are found at 

length 
Married, but marry never, no, nor give 
In marriage ; they are man and wife at once 
When the true time is : here we have to wait 
Not so long neither ! Could we by a wish 
Have what we will and get the future now, 
Would we wish aught done undone in the 

past? 
(Fompilia.) The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

May 24th. 
Ay, that Life and Death 
Of which I wrote '' it was " — to me, it is ; 
— Is, here and now : I apprehend nought else. 
Is not God now i' the world His power first 

made? 
l6 not His love at issue still with sin. 
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth ? 
Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else 

around ? 
Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise 



148 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

To the right hand of the throne — what is it 

beside, 
When such truth, breaking bounds, o'er floods 

my soul, 
And, as I saw the sin and death, even so 
See I the need yet transiency of both, 
The good and glory consummated thence ? 
A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

May 2^th. 
Hearken, hearken ! 
God speaketh in thy soul ; 
Saying, *' O thou that movest 
With feeble steps across this earth of mine, 
To break beside the fount thy golden bowl 

And spill its purple wine, — 
Look up to heaven and see how like a scroll, 
My right hand hath thine immortality 
In an eternal grasping ! Thou, that lovest 
The songful birds and grasses underfoot, 
And also what change mars and tombs pol- 
lute — 
I am the end of love ! give love to Me ! 



FBOM BROWNING 149 

O thou that sinnest, grace doth more abound 

Than all thy sin ! " 

Hearken, hearken ! 
Shall we hear the lapsing river 
And our brother's sighing ever, 
And not the voice of God ? 

Sounds.— E. B. B. 

May 26th. 

I, for my part, value letters as the most 
vital part of biography. . . . We should 
all be ready to say that if the secrets of our 
daily lives and inner souls may instruct other 
surviving souls, let them be open to men here- 
after, even as they are to God now. Dust to 
dust, and soul-secrets to humanity — there are 
natural heirs to all these things. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 

'^If all the gentlest-hearted friends I know 
Concentred in one heart their gentleness, 

I should yet be slow 

To bring my own heart nakedly below 



150 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The palm of such a friend, that he should press 
Motive, condition, means, appliances, 
My false ideal joy and my fickle woe, 
Out full to light and knowledge. 

Apprehension. — E, B. B. 

May 2yth. 
I saw celestial places even. 
Oh, the vistas of high palms, 
Making finites of delight 
Through the heavenly infinite — 
Lifting up their green still tops 

To the heaven of Heavens ! 
Oh, the sweet life-tree that drops 
Shade like light across the river 
Glorified in its forever 

Flowing from the throne ! 
Oh the shining holin esses 
Of the thousand, thousand faces 
God -sunned by the throned One ! 
And made intense with such a love, 
That though I saw them turned above. 
Each loving seemed for also me ! 

IsobeVa Child— E. B. B. 



FHOM BROWNING 151 

May 28ih. 
My God, my God ! let me for once look on 

Thee 
As tho' nought else existed : we alone. 
And as creation crumbles, my soul's spark 
Expands till I can say, ''Even from my- 
self 
I need Thee, and I feel Thee, and I love 

Thee; 
I do not plead my rapture in Thy works 
For love of Thee — or that I feel as one 
Who cannot die — but there is that in me 
Which turns to Thee, which loves." 

Pauline. — R. B. 



He, 

The manifest in secrecies, 

Yet of mine own heart partaker ! 

With the overcoming look 

Of one who hath been once forsook, 

And blesseth the forsaker 

IsobeVs Child.~E. B. B. 



152 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

May 2gth. 

In fact, all the great work done in the 
world, is done just by the people who know 
how to trifle — When a man makes a principle 
of '' never losing a moment, " he is a lost man. 
Great men are eager to find an hour, and not 
to avoid losing a moment. ''What are you 
doing?" said somebody once (as I heard the 
tradition) to the beautiful Lady Oxford as 
she sat in her open carriage on the race-ground. 

" Only a little algebra," said she. People 
who do a little algebra on the race-ground 
are not likely to do much of anything with 
ever so many hours for meditation. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Har- 
per & Brothers. 

May }oth. 
A land's brotherhood 
Is most puissant ! Men, upon the whole, 
Are what they can be, — nations what they 
would. 

Casn Guidi Windows. — E, B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 153 



O holy knowledge, holy liberty, 
O holy rights of nations ! 



Ihid. 



I made them indeed 
Speak plain the word '' country." I taught 

them, no doubt, 
That a country's a thing men should die for 
at need. 

Mother and Foet.—E. B. B. 

Her graves implore 
Her future to be strong and not afraid ! 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

May 31th. 
For everywhere 
We're too materialistic, — eating clay 
(Like men of the west) instead of Adam's 

corn 
And Noah's wine; clay by handfuls, clay 

by lumps, 
Until we're filled up to the throat with clay, 
And grow the grimy color of the ground 



154 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

On which we are feeding. Ay, materiaUst 

The age's name is. God Himself, with some, 

Is apprehended as the bare result 

Of what His hand materially hath made. 

. , . . There are many even 

Whose names are written in the Christian 

Church 
To no dishonor, — diet still on mud. 
And splash the altars with it. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



JUNE. 



June I St. 

The year's at the spring, 
And day's at the morn; 
Morning's at seven ; 
The hillside's dew-pearled ; 
The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn : 
God's in His heaven — 
All's right with the world ! 

Pippa Passes. — R. B, 



Why, what is it to live ? Not to eat and 
drink and breathe, — but to feel the life in 
you down all the fibres of being, passion- 
ately and joyfully. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 



158 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



June 2d. 
Face to face with the true mountains, 

I stood silently and still ; 
Drawing strength for fancy's dauntings 
From the air about the hill, 
And from Nature's open mercies, and most 
debonair goodwill. 

Oh ! the golden-hearted daisies, 

Witnessed there, before my youth, 
To the truth of things with praises 
To the beauty of the truth : 
And I woke to nature's real, laughing joy- 
fully for both. 

The Lost Bower.— E. B. B. 



But let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine ? 
— With Thee to lead me on, O Day of 

mine, 
Down the grass path wet with dew. 
Under the pine-wood. 

Fi;ppa Passea. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 159 

June }d. 
This eve intense with yon first trembling star 
We seem to pant and reach ; scarce aught 

between 
The earth that rises and the heaven that bends ; 
All nature self-abandoned, every tree 
Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts 
And fixed so, every flower and every weed. 
No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat \ 
All under God, each measured by itself. 
. . . See God's approval on His universe ! 
In a Balcony. — R. B. 

We should be ashamed to sit beneath those 

stars, 
Impatient that we're nothing. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

June 4th. 
This is the old woe o' the world ; 
Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die. 
Rise with it, then ! Rejoice that man is hurled 
From change to change unceasingly, 
His soul's wings never furled ! 



160 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

That's a new question ; still replies the fact, 
Nothing endures : the wind moans, saying so ; 
We moan in acquiescence : there's life's pact. 
Perhaps probation — do / know ? 
God does : endure His act ! 

James Lee's Wife. — R. B. 

Why, you child, 
God help you, you are groping in the dark. 
For all this sunlight. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

June ^th. 
Let the night be ne'er so dark. 
The moor is surely somewhere in the sky : 
So surely is your whiteness to be found 
Through all dark facts. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

I told you there's a picture in our church. 
Well, if a low-browed verger sidled up 
Bringing me, like a blotch, on his prod's point, 
A transfixed scorpion, let the reptile writhe, 
And then said, ''See a thing that Raphael 
made — 



FROM BROWNING 161 

This venom issued from Madonna's mouth ! " 
I should reply, '^ Rather, the soul of you 
Has issued from your body, like from like." 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

June 6th. 
That way 
Over the mountain, which who stands upon 
Is apt to doubt if it be indeed a road ; 
While if he views it from the waste itself, 
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, 
Not vague, mistakable ! what's break or two 
Seen from the unbroken desert either side ? 
And then (to bring in fresh philosophy,) 
What if the breaks themselves should prove 

at last 
The most consummate of contrivances 
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith? 
Bishop Blougram^s Apology. — R. B. 

Who, getting to the top of Pisgah-hill, 
Can talk with one at bottom of the view, 
To make it comprehensible ? 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



162 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

June yth. 
Oh, this world : this cheating and screening 
Of cheats ! this conscience for candle-wicks, 
Not beacon-fires ! this over-weening 
Of underhand diplomatic tricks 
Dared for the country while scorned for the 
counter ! 

Oh, this envy of those who mount here, 
And oh, this malice to make them trip ! 
Italy and the World.— ^- B. B. 

Over our heads truth and nature — 
Still our life's zigzags and dodges, 
Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature — 
God's gold just shining its last where that 
lodges, 
Palled beneath man's usurpature. 

Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. — R. B. 

June 8th. 
When the singers lift up their voice. 
And the trumpets made endeavor, 
Sounding, '' In God rejoice ! " 



FROM BROWNING 163 

Saying, ''In Him rejoice 

Whose mercy endureth forever ! " 

Then the Temple filled with a cloud, 
Even the House of the Lord ; 

Porch bent and pillar bowed : 
For the presence of the Lord, 

In the glory of His cloud, 

Had filled the House of the Lord. 

Epilogue. — R. B. 

He reigns above, He reigns alone ; 
Systems burn out and leave His throne : 
. . . Ancient of days, whose days go on ! 
De Frofundis.—E. B, B. 

June pth. 
Oh, our manhood's prime vigor ! No 
spirit feels waste. 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor 

sinew unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from 
rock up to rock, 



164 BEAUTIFUL THOUGBTS 

The strong rending of boughs from the fir- 
tree, the cool silver shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water . . . 

Saul.—Y^. B. 

No, I appeal to God, — what says Himself, 
How lessons Nature when I look to learn ? 
Why, that I am ahve, am still a man 
With brain and heart and tongue and right- 
hand too — 
Nay, even with friends, in such a cause as 

this, 
To right me if I fail to take my right. 
No more of law ; a voice beyond the law 
Enters my heart, Q/a's est pro Domine ? 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



June loth. 
Good love, howe'er ill-placed, 
Is better for a man's soul in the end. 
Than if he loved ill what deserves love well. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B, B. 



FROM BROWNING 165 

Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat ; 
Only, we can't command it ; fire and life 
Are all, dead matter's nothing, we agree : 

belief's fire, once in us. 
Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself : 
We penetrate our life with such a glow 
As fire lends wood and iron — this turns steel, 
That burns to ash — all's one, fire proves its 

power 
For good or ill, . . . 
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn. 
Light one in me, I'll find it food enough ! 
Bishop Blougram^s Apology. — R. B. 

Jtme nth. 
We lie in the dark here, swathed doubly 

around 
With our sensual relations and social conven- 
tions, 
Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are 'ware of a 
sound 

Beyond Hearing and Seeing, — 
. . . the strong arch 



166 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Of our life creaks and bends as if ready for 

falling, 
And through the dim rolling, we hear the 

sweet calling 
Of spirits that speak in a soft under-tongue 

The sense of the mystical march : 
And we cry to them softly, '' Come nearer, 

come nearer. 
And lift up the lap of this Dark, and speak 
clearer, 

And teach us the song that ye 
sung." 
And we smile in our thought if they answer 

or no. 
For to dream of a sweetness is sweet as to know ! 
A Rhapsody of Lifers Progress. — E. B. B. 

June 1 2th. 
June raised that bunch of flowers you carry 

From seeds of April's sowing. 
1 plant a heart full now : some seed 

At least is sure to strike. 
And yield — 

Fippa Passed. — R. B. 



FEOM BROWNING 167 

A great man (who was crowned one day) 
Imagined a great Deed : 
He shaped it out of cloud and clay, 
He touched it finely till the seed 
Possessed the flower ; from heart and 

brain 
He fed it with large thoughts humane 

To help a people's need. 

"O great pure Deed, that hast undone 
So many bad and base ! 
O generous Deed, heroic Deed, 
Come forth, be perfected, succeed. 
Deliver by God's grace ! " 

A Tale of Villa Franca.— E. B. B. 



June ijth. 
Look up — there is a small bright cloud 

Alone amid the skies ! 
So high, so pure, and so apart, 
A woman's honor lies. 

The Bomaunt of the Page. — E. B. B. 



168 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

I believe 
In no one's honor which another keeps, 
Nor man's nor woman's. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Learn to win a lady's faith 
Nobly, as the thing is high ; 

Bravely, as for life and death — 
With a loyal gravity. 

The Lady's " Fes."— E. B. B. 

June 14th. 
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 

From the deep cool bed of the river, — 
. . . Then dropping his mouth to a hole 
in the reed, 
He blew in power by the river. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan, 

Piercing sweet by the river ! 
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 
The sun on the hill forgot to die. 
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 

Came back to dream on the river. 



FROM BROWNING 169 

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan 
To laugh, as he sits by the river, 

Making a poet out of a man. 

The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain — 

For the reed that grows never more again 
As a reed with the reeds of the river. 

A Musical Instrument. — E. B. B. 

June i^th. 
'^ Ay, children, I am old — 

How old, myself have got to know no longer. 
Rolled 

Quite round, my orb of life, from infancy to age, 

Seems passing back again to youth. A cer- 
tain stage 

At last I reach, or dream I reach, where I 
discern 

Truer truths, laws behold more lawlike than 
we learn 

When first we set our foot to tread the course 
I trod 

With man to guide my steps : who leads me 
now is God. 



170 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

' Your young men shall see visions : * and in 

my youth I saw 
And paid obedience to man's visionary 

law: 
* Your old men shall dream dreams : ' and in 

my age, a Hand 
Conducts me through the cloud round law to 

where 1 stand 
Firm on its base, — know cause, who, before, 

knew effect." 

Ivhn Ivhnovitch. — R. B. 



June 1 6th. 
I dwell amid the city ever. 
The great humanity which beats 
Its life along the stony streets, 
Like a strong and unsunned river 
In a self-made course, 
I sit and hearken while it rolls. 

Very sad and very hoarse 
Certes is the flow of souls. 



FEOM BROWNING 171 

I dwell amid the city, 

And hear the flow of souls in act and speech, 
For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly : 
I hear the confluence and sum of each. 

And that is melancholy ! — 
The voice is a complaint, O crowned city. 
The blue sky covering thee like God's great 
pity. 

TheSouVa Travelling.—^. B. B. 

June lyth. 

And God's own profound 

Was above me, and round me the mountains. 

And under, the sea, 
And within me my heart to bear witness 

What was and shall be. 
Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal ! 

No rampart excludes 
Your eye from the life to be lived 

In the blue solitudes. 
Oh, those mountains, their infinite move- 
ment ! 

The Englishman in Italy. — R. B. 



172 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Far out, kindled by each other, 

Shining hills on hills arise ; 
Close as brother leans to brother, 
When they press beneath the eyes 
Of some father praying blessings from the 
gifts of paradise. 

The Lost Bower. -E. B. B. 

June i8th. 
Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, 
A master to obey, a course to take. 
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become. 
Grant this, then man must pass from old to 

new. 
From vain to real, from mistake to fact. 
From what once seemed good, to what now 

proves best. 
How could man have progression otherwise ? 
. . . God's gift was that man should con- 
ceive of truth 
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
As midway help till he reached fact indeed. 



FROM BROWNING 173 

If ye demur, this judgment on your head, 
Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law. 
Indulging every instinct of the soul 
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one 
thing ! 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

June ipth. 
The June was in me, with its multitudes 
Of nightingales all singing in the dark. 
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx 

split. 
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God ! 
So glad, I could not choose be very wise ! 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves His world so 

much. 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
Who ask me : — last year's sunsets, and great 

stars, 
. . . Those crescent moons . . . and 

that day 



174 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

In March, a double rainbow stopped the 

storm — 
May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer 

nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 
Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

June 20th. 
There's nothing like 
Appealing to our nature ! what beside 
Was your first poetry ? No tricks were tried 
In that, no hollow thrills, affected throes ! 
''The man," we said, "tells his own joys 

and woes : 
We'll trust him." Would you have your 

songs endure ? 
Build on the human heart ! 

Sordello.—R. B. 

And yet, I've been more moved, more raised, 

I say, 
By a simple word ... a broken easy thing 
A three-years infant might at need repeat, 
A look, a sigh, a touch upon the palm, 



FROM BROWNING 175 

Which meant less than ''I love you "... 
than by all 

The full-voiced rhetoric of those master- 
mouths. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

June 21 St. 
The world lies under me : and nowhere I de- 
tect 
So great a gift as this — God's own — of 

human rife. 
*' Shall the dead praise Thee ? " No ! '' The 

whole live world is rife, 
God, with Thy glory," rather ! Life then, 

God's best of gifts. 
For what shall man exchange? For life — 

when so he shifts 
The weight and turns the scale, lets life for 

life restore 
God's balance, sacrifice the less to gain the 

more, 
Substitute — for low life, another's or his 

own — 



176 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Life large and liker God's Who gave it : 

thus alone 
May life extinguish life that life may trulier 

be! 

How say you, should the hand God trusted 

with life's torch 
Kindled to light the world — aware of sparks 

that scorch, 
Let fall the same ? 

Ivhn Ivanovitch. — R. B. 

June 22d. 
And, O beloved voices, upon which 
Ours passionately call, because erelong 
Ye brake off in the middle of that song 
We sang together softly, to enrich 
The poor world with the sense of love, and 

witch 
The heart out of things evil, — I am strong, 
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among 
The hills, with last year's thrush. God 

keeps a niche 



FROM BROWNING 177 

In Heaven to hold our idols : and albeit 
He brake them to our faces and denied 
That our close kisses should impair their 

white, — 
I know we shall behold them, raised complete, 
The dust swept from their beauty, — glorified 
New Memnons singing in the great God- 
light, 

Futurity. — Y.. B. B. 

June 2}d. 
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly 

clung 
To their first fault, and withered in their 
pride ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

Not so, dear child 
Of after-days, wilt thou reject the Past, 
Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure 
By which thou hast the earth : the Present 

for thee 
Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen 



178 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Beside that Past's own shade, whence, in 

rehef, 
Its brightness shall stand out : nor on thee yet 
Shall burst the Future, as successive zones 
Of several wonder open on some spirit 
Flying secure and glad from heaven to 

heaven ; 
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy, 
While hope, and fear, and love, shall keep 

thee man ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

June 24th. 
Bright ministers of God and grace ! of grace 
Because of God ! — whether ye bow adown 
In your own heaven, before the living face 
Of Him who died, and deathless wears the 

crown — 
Or whether at this hour, ye haply are 
Anear, around me, hiding in the night 
Of this permitted ignorance your light, 

This feebleness to spare, — 

/too may haply smile another day . . . 



FROM BROWNING 179 

When God may call me in your midst to dwell, 
To hear your most sweet music's miracle 
And see your wondrous faces. May it be, 
For His remembered sake, the Slain on rood. 
Who rolled His earthly garment red in blood 
(Treading the wine-press,) that the weak 

like me, 
Before His heavenly throne should walk in 

white. 

The Seraphim.— E. B. B. 

June 2^th. 
I lived with visions for my company 
Instead of men and women, years ago, 
And found them gentle mates, nor thought 

to know 
A sweeter music than they played to me. 
Lut soon their trailing purple was not free 
Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent 

grow, 
And I myself grew faint and blind below 
Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst 

come ... to be. 



180 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining 

fronts, 
Their songs, their splendors . . . (better, yet 

the same. 
As water-river hallowed into fonts . . . ) 
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 
My soul with satisfaction of all wants, — 
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams 

to shame. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

June 26th. 

I well knew my weak resolves, 
I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep 
Over its treasures — as one half afraid 
To make his riches definite — but now 
These feelings shall not utterly be lost, 
I shall not know again that nameless care. 
Lest leaving all undone in youth, some new 
And undreamed end reveal itself too late : 
. . . And though this weak soul sink, 

and darkness come. 
Some little word shall light it up again, 



i 



FROM BBOWNINO 181 

And I shall see all clearer and love better ; 
I shall again go o'er the tracts of thought, 
As one who has a right ; and I shall live 
With poets — calmer — purer still each time, 
And beauteous shapes will come to me again. 
And unknown secrets will be trusted me. 
Which were not mine when wavering. 

Pauline.— ^. B. 

June 2yth. 
For me, my heart that erst did go 
Most like a tired child at a show. 
That sees through tears the mummers leap, 
Would now its wearied vision close, 
Would childlike on JJis love repose, 
Who ''giveth His beloved, sleep ! " 

And, friends, dear friends, — when it shall be 

That this low breath is gone from me, 

And round my bier ye come to weep. 

Let one, most loving of you all, 

Say, '' Not a tear must o'er her fall — 

He giveth His beloved, sleep." 

The Sleep.— E. B. B. 



182 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

June 28th. 
One cannot judge 
Of what has been the ill or well of life, 
The day that one is dying, — sorrows change 
Into not altogether sorrow-like ; 
I do see strangeness but scarce misery, 
Now it is over, and no danger more. 
. . . Yes, everybody that leaves life sees all 
Softened and bettered : so with other sights : 
To me at least was never evening yet 
But seemed far beautifuUer than its day. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

" O Christ, come tenderly ! 
. And smile away my mortal to di- 
vine. ' * 
A Thought for a Lonely Death-Bed.— E. B. B. 

June 29th. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died June 29th, 1861. 

I am strong in the spirit, — deep-thoughted, 
clear-eyed, — 

I could walk, step for step, with an angel be- 
side, 



FEOM BROWNING l83 

On the Heaven-heights of Truth ! 
Oh, the soul keeps its youth — 
But the body faints sore, it is tired in the 

race, 
It sinks from the chariot ere reaching the 
goal; 
It is weak, it is cold, 
The rein drops from its hold — 
It sinks back with the death in its face. 
. . . O Death, O Beyond, 
Thou art sweet, thou art strange ! 

A Rhapsody of Lifers Progress. — E. B. B. 

The snow-white soul that angels fear to take 
Untenderly. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

June ^oth. 
O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird 
And all a wonder and a wild desire, — 
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, 
Took sanctuary within the holier blue, 
And sang a kindred soul out to his face, — 
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart, — 



184 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

When the first summons from the darkUng 

earth 
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched 

their blue, 
And bared them of the glory — to drop down. 
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — 
This is the same voice : can thy soul know 

change ? 
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of 

help! 
Never may I commence my song, my due 
To God who best taught gift of song by thee. 
Except with bent head and beseeching 

hand — 
That still, despite the distance and the dark, 
What was, again may be ; some interchange 
Of grace, some splendor once thy very 

thought. 
Some benediction anciently thy smile ! 

Dedication of The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 



JULY 



July I St. 

I. 

Good, to forgive ; 
Best, to forget ! 
Living, we fret ; 
Dying, we live. 
Fretless and free, 
Soul clap thy pinion ! 
Earth have dominion, 
Body, o'er thee ! 

n. 

Wander at will. 
Day after day, — 
Wander away. 
Wandering still — 
Soul that canst soar ! 
Body may slumber : 
Body shall cumber 
Soul-flight no more. 



188 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

III. 

Waft of soul's wing ! 
What lies above? 
Sunshine and Love, 
Sky-blue and Spring ! 
Body hides — where? 
Ferns of all feather, 
Mosses and heather. 
Yours be the care ! 

PisgahSighU—R. B. 

July 2d. 
All service ranks the same with God : 
If now, as formerly He trod 
Paradise, His presence fills 
Our earth, each only as God wills 
Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 
Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

Say not *' a small event " ! Why " small ' 
Costs it more pain than this, ye call 
A ''great event," should come to pass, 
Than that ? Untwine me from the mass 



I 



FROM BROWNING 189 

Of deeds which make up Hfe, one deed 
Power shall fall short in, or exceed ! 

I will pass by, and see their hap- 
piness, 
And envy none — being just as great, no doubt. 
Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 
Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

July jd. 
Well, sunshine's everywhere, and summer 
too. 

Colombe^s Birthday. — R. B. 

Summer days .... 
That scarce dare breathe they are so 
beautiful. 

Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 

See the earth. 

The body of our body, the green earth, 
Indubitably human like this flesh 
And these articulated veins through which 
Our heart drives blood ! There's not a 
flower of Spring 



190 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied 
By issue and symbol, by significance 
And correspondence, to that spirit-world 
Outside the linnits of our space and time, 
Whereto we are bound. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

July 4th. 

With teachings of Thought we reach down to 
the deeps 
Of the souls of our brothers. 

And teach them full words with our slow- 
moving lips 

<'God," *' Liberty," "Truth,"— which they 
hearken and think 

And work into harmony, link upon link, 

. . . . Then we hear through the silence 
and glory afar, 
As from shores of a star 

In aphelion, — the new generations that cry, 

Disenthralled by our voice to harmonious 
reply. 



FROM BROWNING 191 

"God," '^ Liberty," ''Truth" ! 
We are glorious forsooth — 
And our name has a seat, 
Though the shroud should be donned. 
A Rhapsody of Lifers Progress. — E. B. B. 

The emphasis of death makes manifest 
The eloquence of action in our flesh ; 
And men who, living, were but dimly guessed, 
When once free from life's entangled mesh, 
Show their full length in graves. 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

July ^th. 
A soul fit to receive 
Delight at every sense ; you can believe 
Sordello foremost in the regal class 
Nature has broadly severed from her mass 
Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she 

frames 
Some happy lands, that have luxurious names 
For loose fertility ; a footfall there 
Suffices to upturn to the warm air 



192 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Half-germinating spices ; mere decay 
Produces richer life ; and day by day 
New pollen on the lily-petal grows, 
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose. 
You recognize at once the finer dress 
Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness 
At eye and ear ... a touch divine — 
And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod ; 
Visibly through His garden walketh God. 

Sordello.—^. B. 

July 6th. 
*< Free men freely work. 
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease." 
He cried, "True. After Adam, work was 

curse ; 
The natural creature labors, sweats and 

frets. 
But after Christ, work turns to privilege, 
And henceforth one with our humanity, 
The Six-day Worker, working still in us. 
Has called us freely to work on with Him 
In high companionship. So, happiest ! 



FROM BROWNING 193 

I count that Heaven itself is only work 
To a surer issue. Let us work, indeed, 
But no more work as Adam, nor 
. . . . as if the only man on earth, 
Responsible for all the thistles blown 
And tigers couchant, — struggling in amaze 
Against disease and winter, — snarling on 
Forever, that the world's not paradise. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

July yth. 
God keeps His holy mysteries 

Just on the outside of man's dream ! 

Abstractions, are they, from the forms 
Of His great beauty ? — exaltations 

From His great glory ? — strong previsions 

Of what we shall be ? — intuitions 

Of what we are — in calms and storms, 
Beyond our peace and passions ? 

Things nameless ! which, in passing so. 
Do stroke us with a subtle grace. 



194 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Yet, touching so, they draw above 

Our common thoughts to Heaven's un- 
known — 
Our daily joy and pain advance 
To a divine significance, — 
Our human love — O mortal love, 
That light is not its own ! 

Human Lifers Misery. — E. B. B. 

July 8th. 
If lost confidence might be renewed ? 

Never in noble natures ! With the base 

ones, — 
Twist off the crab's claw, wait a smarting- 

while. 
And something grows and grows and gets to 

be 
A mimic of the lost joint, just so like 
As keeps in mind it never, never will 
Replace its predecessor ! Crabs do that : 
But lop the lion's foot ! — 

Colombe'a Birthday. — R. B. 



FBOM BROWNING 195 

The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own. 
Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown, 
That quick with prey enough her hunger 

blunts, 
And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts. 

Sordello.—R. B. 

July gth. 
The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn, 
Which seemed to have come on purpose from 

the woods 
To bring the house a message. 

. . . . The moon came, 
And swept my chamber clean of foolish 

thoughts. 
The sun came, saying, *' Shall I lift this light 
Against the lime-tree, and you will not look ? 
I make the birds sing — listen ! but, for you, 
God never hears your voice, excepting when 
You lie upon the bed at nights and weep. ' ' 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

She thanked God and sighed. 

(Some people always sigh in thanking God.) 

Ibid, 



196 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

July loth. 
She looked up to the pictured saint and gently 

shook her head — 
''The picture is too calm for me, too calm 

for me,'' she said : 
" The little flowers we brought with us, before 

it we may lay, 
For those are used to look at heaven, — but / 

must turn away — 
Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear 

to gaze 
On God's or angel's hohness, except in Jesus' 

face." 



Then breaking into tears, — "Dear God," 

she cried, " and must we see 
All blissful things depart from us, or ere we 

go to Thee ? 
We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or hear 

Thee in the wind ? 
Our cedars must fall around us, ere we see 

the light behind ? 



FROM BROWNING 197 

Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need 

Thee on that road ; 
But woe being come, the soul is dumb that 

crieth not on * God.' " 

The Lay of the Brown Rosary, — E. B. B. 

July nth. 
I used to sit and look at my life 
As it rippled and ran till, right before, 
A great stone stopped it : oh, the strife 
Of waves at the stone some devil threw 
In my life's midcurrent, thwarting God ! 

But either I thought, " They may churn and 
chide 

Awhile, my waves which came for their 
joy 
And found this horrible stone full-tide : 

Yet I see just a thread escape, deploy 
Through the evening-country, silent and safe, 
And it suffers no more till it finds the sea." 
Or else I would think, " Perhaps some night 
When new things happen, a meteor-ball 



198 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

May slip through the sky in a line of light, 
And earth breathe hard, and landmarks fall, 
And my waves no longer champ nor chafe. 
Since a stone will have rolled from its place : 
let be!" 

Too Late.—R. B. 

July 1 2th. 
I read a score of books on womanhood 
To prove, if women do not think at all, 
They may teach thinking, . . . books that 

boldly assert 
Their right of comprehending husband's talk 
When not too deep, and even of answering 
With pretty* 'may it please you," or ''so 

it is,"— 
Their rapid insight and fine aptitude. 
Particular worth and general missionariness. 
As long as they keep quiet by the fire 
And never say "no" when the world says 

"ay," 
For that is fatal, — their angelic reach 
Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and dam, 



FROM BROWNING 199 

. . . . their, in brief, 
Potential faculty in everything 
Of abdicating power in it : she owned 
She liked a woman to be womanly. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

July ijth. 
** He gathers earth's whole good into his arms, 
Standing, as man, now, stately, strong and 

wise, — 
Marching to Fortune, not surprised by her : 
One great aim, like a guiding-star, above — 
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness to 

lift 
His manhood to the height that takes the 

prize ; 
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth 
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote, 
So that he rests upon his path content : 
But day by day, while shimmering grows 

shine. 
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb, 
He sees so much as, just evolving these, 



300 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength, 
To due completion, will suffice this life. 
And lead him at his grandest to the grave. 
After this star." 

ColomWs Birthday. — R. B. 

July 14th. 
And who saith " I loved once ? " 
Not angels, whose clear eyes, love, love 
foresee, 
Love through eternity. 
And by To Love do apprehend To Be. 
Not God, called Love, His noble crown- 
name, — casting 
A light too broad for blasting ! 
The great God changing not from everlast- 
ing, 
Saith never, '' I loved once." 

Oh, never is ''Loved once,'' 
Thy word, thou Victim-Christ, misprized 
friend 
Thy cross and curse may rend ; 
But having loved Thou lovest to the end ! 



FROM BROWNING 201 

it is man's saying — man's. Too weak to 
move 
One sphered star above. 
Man desecrates the eternal God -word, Love, 
With His No More and Once. 

Loved Once.—E. B. B. 



July i^th. 

And have you never mused and said, 
*' I had a noble purpose, and full strength 
To compass it; but I have stopped half- 
way, 
And wrongly give the first-fruits of my toil 
To objects little worthy of the gift : 
Why linger round them still? why clench 

my fault ? 
Why seek for consolation in defeat — 
In vain endeavors to derive a beauty 
From ugliness ? why seek to make the most 
Of what no power can change, nor strive in- 
stead 
With mighty effort to redeem the past, 



202 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And, gathering up the treasures thus cast 

down, 
To hold a steadfast course 'til I arrive 
At their fit destination and my own? " 

Faracelms. — R. B. 

July 1 6th. 
God ! Thou art Love ! I build my faith on 

that! 
Even as I watch beside Thy tortured child, 
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him ; 
So doth Thy right hand guide us through the 

world 
Wherein we stumble. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother 
while she blesses 

And drops upon his burning brow the cool- 
ness of her kisses ; 

That turns his fevered eyes around — "My 
mother ! Where's my mother? " 

As if such tender words and deeds could 
come from any other ! 



FROM BROWNING 203 

The fever gone, with leaps of heart, he sees 

her bending o'er him. 
Her face all pale from watchful love, the un- 

weary love she bore him ! — 
Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's 

long fever gave him, 
Beneath those deep, pathetic Eyes, which 

closed in death to save him ! 

Cowper'a Grave. — E, B. B. 

July 77. 

" And there was silence in Heaven for the space 
of half-an-hour." — Revelations. 

God, who, with thunders and great voices kept 
Beneath Thy throne, and stars most silver- 
paced 
Along the inferior gyres, and open-faced 
Melodious angels round; — canst intercept 
Music with music ; — yet, at will, hast swept 
All back, all back, (said he in Patmos placed, ) 
To fill the heavens with silence of the waste, 
Which lasted half-an-hour ! — Lo, I who have 
wept 



204 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

All day and night, beseech Thee by my 

tears, 
And • by that dread response of curse and 

groan 
Men alternate across these hemispheres, 
Vouchsafe us such a half-hour's hush alone, 
In compensation for our stormy years ! 
As heaven has paused from song, let earth, 

from moan. 

Heaven and Earth. — E. B. B. 

July 1 8th. 
I do what many dream of all their lives. 
— Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do. 
And fail in doing .... 
Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I am judged. 
There burns a truer light of God in them. 
In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped- 

up brain. 
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to 

prompt 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand 

of mine. 



FROM BROWNING 205 

Their works drop ground ward, but them- 
selves, I know, 

Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to 
me, 

Enter and take their place there sure enough. 

Though they come back and cannot tell the 
world. 

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
Andrea Del Sarto. — R. B. 

Julv 19th, 
Speak not ! he is consecrated — 
Breathe no breath across his eyes : 
Lifted up and separated 
On the hand of God he lies, 
In a sweetness beyond touching, — held in 
cloistral sanctities. 

Could you bless him — father — mother ? 
Bless the dimple in his cheek ? 
Dare ye look at one another, 
And the benediction speak ? 
Would you not break out in weeping, and con- 
fess yourselves too weak ? 



206 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

He is harmless — ye are sinful, 
Ye are troubled, — he at ease: 
From his slumber, virtue winful 
Floweth outward with increase — 
Dare not bless him ! but be blessed by his 
peace — and go in peace. 

A Child Asleep.— Y.. B. B. 

July 20th. 
How very hard it is to be 
A Christian ! Hard for you and me, 
— Not the mere task of making real 
The duty up to its ideal, 
Effecting thus, complete and whole, 
A purpose of the human soul — 
For that is always hard to do ; 
But hard, I mean, for me and you 
To realize it, more or less. 
With even the moderate success 
Which commonly repays our strife 
To carry out the aims of life. 
" This aim is greater," you will say, 
*' And so more arduous every way." 



FEOM BROWNING 207 

But the importance of their fruits 
Still proves to man, in all pursuits, 
Proportional encouragement. 

Easter-Day.— R. B. 
Jttly 21 St. 
Prometheus. I did restrain besides 

My mortals from premeditating death. 
Chorus. How didst thou medicine the 

plague-fear of death ? 
Prometheus. I set blind Hopes to inhabit in 

their house. 
Chorus. By that gift, thou didst help thy 

mortals well. 

Prometheus Bound. — E. B. 

''Here I live 

In trusting ease : and here you drive 

At causing me to lose what most 

Yourself would mourn for had you lost ! " 

But, do you see, my friend, that thus 

You leave St. Paul for ^schylus ? 

— Who made his Titan's arch-device 

The giving men d/t'nd hopes to spice 

The meal of life with. 

Easter- Day, -^^ B. 



208 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

July 22d 
Some respect to social fictions 
Hath been also lost by me ; 
And some generous genuflexions 
Which my spirit offered free 
To the pleasant old conventions of our false 
humanity. 

The Lost Bower— ^. B. B. 

And, sometimes, horror chills our blood 
To be so near such mystic Things : 
We wrap around us, for defence, 
Our purple manners, moods of sense — 
As angels, from the face of God, 
Stand hidden in their wings. 

Human Lifers 3Iisery. — E. B. B. 

July 23d. 
Indeed the especial marking of the man 
Is prone submission to the heavenly will — 
Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 
Sayeth he will wait patient to the last 
For that same death which must restore hi . 
being 



FROM BROWNING 209 

To equilibrium, body loosening soul 

Divorced even now by premature full growth. 

. . . . he loves both old and young, 

Able and weak, affects the very brutes 

And birds — how say I ? flowers of the field — 

As a wise workman recognizes tools 

In a master's workshop, loving what they 

make. 
Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: 
Only impatient, let him do his best 
At ignorance and carelessness and sin — 
An indignation that is promptly curbed. 

An Epistle of Karshish. — R. B. 



July 24th. 

The self-poised God may dwell alone 

With inward glorying ; 
But God's chief angel waiteth for 

A brother's voice to sing. 
And a lonely creature of sinful nature — 

It is an awful thing. 

The PoeVs Fow.— E. B. B. 



210 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Hold it in thy constant ken 
That God's own unity compresses 
One into one, the human many. 
And that His everlastingness is 
The bond which is not loosed by any. 
For thou and I this law must keep, 
If not in love, in sorrow then ; 
Though smiling not like other men, 

Still like them we must weep. 

Ibid. 
July 2^th. 
Death so nigh, 
When time must end, eternity 
Begin, — and cannot I compute, 
Weigh loss and gain together, suit 
My actions to the balance drawn, 
And give my body to be sawn 
Asunder, hacked in pieces, tied 
To horses, stoned, burned, crucified. 
Like any martyr of the list ? 
How gladly ! — if I make acquist. 
Through the brief minute's fierce annoy, 
Of God's eternity of joy. 

Easter- Day. —^. B. 



FROM BROWNING 211 

So shall we marvel why we grudged 
Our labor here, and idly judged 
Of heaven. 

Ibid. 

July 26th. 
So! 

No after- judgment — no first thought re- 
vised — 

Her first and last decision ! me, she leaves — 

Takes him — a simple heart is flung aside, 

The ermine o'er a heartless breast embraced ! 

Oh Heaven, this mockery has been played 
too oft ! 

Once, to surprise the angels — twice, that 
fiends 

Recording, might be proud they chose not 
so — 

Thrice, many thousand times, to teach the 
world 

All men should pause, misdoubt their strength, 
since men 

Could have such chance yet fail so signally. 



212 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

But ever — ever — this farewell to heaven, 
Welcome to earth — this taking death for 

life — 
This spurning love and kneeling to the 

world — 
Oh Heaven, it is too often and too old ! 

Colomhe's Birthday, — R. B. 

July 2yth. 
I have prayed for thee with bursting sobs, 

When passion's course was free : 
I have prayed for thee with silent lips, 

In the anguish none could see ! 
They whispered oft, " She sleepeth soft," — 
But I only prayed for thee. 

The PoeVs Vow.—E. B. B. 

Oh, womanly she prayed in tent. 
When none beside did wake ! 

The Bomaunt of the Page. — E. B. B. 

Why, what angel uplifts 
Such a music, so clear. 
It may seem in God's ear 



FROM BROWNING 213 

Worth more than a woman's hoarse weeping ? 

And thus, 
Pity tender as tears, I above thee would speak, 
Thou woman that weepest ! 

The Seraphim.— E. B. B. 

July 28th. 
She will weep her woman's tears, she will 

pray her woman's prayers, 
But her heart is young in pain, and her hopes 
will spring again 
By the suntirae of her years. 
Rhyme of the Duchesa May.—E. B. B. 

Youth once gone is gone : 
Deeds, let escape, are never to be done. 
Leaf-fall and grass-spring for the year; for 

us — 
Oh, forfeit I unalterably thus 
My chance ? nor two lives wait me, this to 

spend, 
Learning save that? Nature has time, may 

mend 



214 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Mistake, she knows occasion will recur ; 
Landslip or seabreach, how affects it her 
With her magnificent resources ? 

Sordello.—R. B. 

Youth's too bright not to be a little hard. 
Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 

Youth's stern, set face to face 
With youth's ideal. 

Ibid. 

July 29th. 
Fool ! All that is, at all. 
Lasts ever, past recall ; 
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand 
sure: 
What entered into thee. 
That was, is, and shall be : 
Time's wheel runs back or stops ; Potter and 
clay endure. 

He fixed thee mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance. 
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain 
arrest : 



FROM BBOWNINQ 215 

Machinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent, 
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently im- 
pressed. 

What though the earlier grooves 
Which ran the laughing loves 
Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? 
What though, about thy rim, 
Skull-things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner 
stress? 

BabU Ben Ezra.^'R, B. 

July joth, I 
Look not thou down but up ! ^ 
To uses of a cup, — 



But I need, now as then. 
Thee, God, who moldest men ; 
And since, not even while the whirl was 
worst, 



216 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Did I, — to the wheel of life 
With shapes and colors rife, 
Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to slake 
Thy thirst : 

So, take and use Thy work : 
Amend what flaws may lurk, 
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past 
the aim ! 
My times be in Thy hand ! 
Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let Age approve of Youth, and Death com- 
plete the same ! 

BabU Ben Ezra.—R. B. 

July J I St. 
There is a vision in the heart of each 
Of justice, mercy, wisdom ; tenderness 
To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its 
cure. 

Colombe^a Birthday. — R. B. 

Were men all mind — he gains 
A station little enviable. From God 
Down to the lowest spirits ministrant. 



FBOM BROWNING 217 

Intelligence exists which casts our mind 
Into immeasurable shade. No, no : 
Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity. 
These are its sign, and note, and character. 
Paracelsus. — R. B. 

The poems in my soul, 
The love, the passionate faith, the sacrifice, 
The constancy. 

In a Balcony, --K. B. 



AUGUST. 



August J St. 
And some midsummer morning, at the lull 
Just about daybreak, as he looks across 
A sparkling foreign country, wonderful 
To the sea's edge for gloom and gloss, 
Next minute must annul, — 

Then, when the wind begins among the vines. 
So low, so low, what shall it say but this ? 
'' Here is the change beginning, here the 
hnes 
Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss 
The limit time assigns." 

Nothing can be as it has been before : 
Better, so call it, only not the same. 
To draw one beauty into our heart's core. 
And keep it changeless ! such our claim ; 
So answered, — Never more ! 

James Lee's Wife. — R. B. 



222 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

August 2d. 
Venice seems a type 
Of Life — 'twixt blue and blue extends, a 

stripe, 
As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt naught 

and naught : 
'Tis Venice, and 'tis Life — as good you 

sought 
To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone 
Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone, 
As hinder Life the evil with the good 
Which makes up Living, rightly understood. 

Sordello.—R. B. 



It is our trust 
That there is yet another world to mend 
All error and mischance. 

Faracelms. — R. B. 



But Who clothes summer. Who is Life itself ? 
God, that created all things, can renew ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 223 

August }d. 
O world, O world, 
O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, 
We play a weary game of hide-and-seek ! 
We shape a figure of our fantasy, 
Call nothing something, and run after it 
And lose it, lose ourselves too in the search. 
Till clash against us, comes a somebody 
Who also has lost something and is lost. 
Philosopher against philanthropist. 
Academician against poet, man 
Against woman, against the living the dead. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

. . . . the secret of the world, 
Of man, and man's true purpose, path, and 
fate. 

Paracelaus. — R. B. 

August 4th. 
Lead us and teach us, till earth and heaven 
Grow larger around us and higher above. 

Italy and the World.— E. B. B. 



BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Through Heaven and earth 
God's will moves freely ; and I follow it, 
As color follows light. He overflows 
The firmamental walls with deity, 
Therefore with love; His lightenings go 

abroad ; 
His pity may do so. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

I profess no other share 
In the selection of my lot, than this. 
A ready answer to the will of God 
Who summons me. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



August ^th. 

I am a watcher, whose eyes have grown dim 
With looking for some star— which breaks 

on him. 
Altered, and worn, and weak, and full of 

tears. 

Pauline.— K. B. 



FROM BROWNING 225 

Now Christ bless you with the one light 
Which goes shining night and day ! 

May the flowers which grow in sunlight 
Shed their fragrance on your way ! 

Wine of Cyprus. — E. B. B. 

Is it enough, dear God ? then lighten so 
This soul that smiles in darkness ! 

Hugh Stuart Boyd.—E. B. B. 

August 6th. 
Look, look up, in starry passion, 

To the throne above the spheres, — 
Learn : the spirit's gravitation 

Still must differ from the tears. 
Hope : with all the strength thou usest 

In embracing thy despair : 
Love : the earthly love thou losest 

Shall return to thee more fair. 
Work : make clear the forest-tangles 

Of the wildest stranger-land : 
Trust : the blessed deathly angels 

Whisper *' Sabbath hours at hand 1 " 



226 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

By the heart's wound when most gory 

By the longest agony, 
Smile ! — Behold, in sudden glory 

The Transfigured smiles on thee / 

The Fourfold Aspect.— E. B. B. 

August yth. 
First I will pray. Do Thou 

That ownest the soul, 

Yet wilt grant control 
To another, nor disallow 
For a time, restrain me now ! 

I admonish me while I may, 

Not to squander guilt, 

Since require Thou wilt 
At my hand its price one day ! 
What the price is, who can say? 

Mesmerism. — R. B. 

Still trusting in a Hand that leads me through 
All danger ; and this feeling still has fought 
Against my weakest reason and resolves. 

PawWne.— R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 227 



August 8th. 
So, I soberly laid my last plan 
To extinguish the man. . . . 
When sudden . . . how think ye, the end ? 
Did I say * ' without friend ' ' ? 
Say rather, from marge to blue marge 
The whole sky grew his targe 
With the sun's self for visible boss, 
While an Arm ran across 
Which the earth heaved beneath like a 

breast 
Where the wretch was safe prest ! 
Do you see ? Just my vengeance complete 
The man sprang to his feet, 
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and 

prayed ! 
— So, / was afraid ! 

Jnstans Tyrannua. — R. B. 

August pth. 

Lay me, 

When I shall die, within some narrow grave, 

Not by itself,— for that would be too proud — 

But where such graves are thickest ; let it look 



228 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Nowise distinguished from the hillocks 

round, 
So that the peasant at his brother's bed 
May tread upon my own and know it not ; 
And we shall all be equal at the last, 
Or classed according to life's natural ranks, 
Fathers, sons, brothers, friends, — not rich, 

nor wise, 
Nor gifted : lay me thus, then say ''He lived 
Too much advanced before his brother men : 
They kept him still in front ; 'twas for their 

good. 
But yet a dangerous station. It were strange 
That he should tell God he had never 

ranked 
With men : so, here at least he is a man ! " 
ParaeeUus, — R. B. 

August lOth. 
Listen : I do beUeve, what you call trust 
Was self-reliance at best ; for, see ! 
So long as God would kindly pioneer 
A path for you, and screen you from the 
world, 



FROM BROWNING 229 

Procure you full exemption from man's lot, 
Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere 

pretext 
Of your engagement in His service — yield you 
A limitless license . . . you were content 

to say 
Most courtly praises ! What is it, at last. 
But selfishness without example ? None 
Could trace God's will so plain as you, while 

yours 
Remained implied in it ; but now you fail, 
And we, who prate about that will, are fools ! 
In short, God's service is established here 
As He determines fit, and not your way. 
And this you cannot brook ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

August nth. 
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, 

We build the house where we may rest , 
And then, at moments, suddenly, 
We look up to the great wide sky, 
Enquiring wherefore were we born. . . , 

For earnest, or for jest ? 



230 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The senses folding thick and dark 
About the stifled soul within, 

We guess diviner things beyond, 

And yearn to them with yearning fond ; 

We strike out blindly to a mark 
Believed in, but not seen. 



And in the tumult and excess 

Of act and passion under sun, 
We sometimes hear — oh, soft and far, 
As silver star did touch with star, 
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness 
Through all things that are done. 

Human Life's Misery. — E. B. B. 

August 1 2th. 
Deep within my heart of hearts there hid 

Ever the confidence, amends for all, 
That heaven repairs what wrong earth's 
journey did, 
When love from life-long exile comes at 
call. 
Duty and love one broad way, were the best— 



FROM BROWNING 231 

Who doubts ? But one or other was to 
choose. 
I chose the darkling half, and wait the rest 
In that new world where light and dark- 
ness fuse. 

Bifurcation, — R. B. 

The rest is with God — whose finger I see 
every minute of my life. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

The mastery another life should learn, 
Thrusting in time eternity's concern. 

Sordello.—R. B. 

August ijth. 
Behold, the people waits. 
Like God, as He, in His serene of might. 
So they, in their endurance of long straits. 
Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night 
Ye tread them with that absolute heel which 

grates 
And grinds them flat from all attempted 
height. 



232 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

You kill worms sooner with a garden-spade 
Than you kill peoples : peoples will not die ; 
The tail curls stronger when you lop the 

head; 
They writhe at every wound and multiply, 
And shudder into a heap of life that's made 
Thus vital from God's own vitality. 
'Tis hard to shrivel back a day of God's 
Once fixed for judgment : 'tis hard to 

change 
The people's, when they rise beneath their 

loads 
And heave them from their backs with violent 

wrench 
To crush the oppresser. 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

August 14th. 
Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, 
This same unseen friend, before I knew : 
Dream there was none like him, none above 
him, — 
Wake to hope and trust my dream 
was true. 



FROM BROWNING 233 

Loved I not his letters full of beauty ? 

Not his actions famous far and wide ? 
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty ; 

Present, he would find me at his side. 

Never mind ! Though foolishness may flout 
me. 
One thing's sure enough : 'tis neither frost, 
No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out 
me 
Thanks for truth — though falsehood, 
gained — though lost. 
All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier, 
For that dream's sake ! How forget the 
thrill 
Through and through me as I thought *' The 
gladlier 
Lives my friend because I love him still ! ' ' 
Fears and Scruples. — R. B. 

August i^ih. 
There is something fascinating to me, in 
that Bohemian way of living ... all the 
conventions of society cut so close and thin. 



234 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

that the soul can see through . . . beyond 
. . . above. It is ''real life" as you say 
... I am very glad that you like simplicity 
in habits of life — it has both reasonableness 
and sanctity. People are apt to suffocate 
their faculties by their manners — English 
people especially. I admire that you, who 
have had temptation more than enough, I am 
certain, under every form, have lived in the 
midst of this London of ours, close to the 
great social vortex, yet have kept so safe, 
and free, and calm and pure from the beset- 
ting sins of our society. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 

August l6th. 
>i I tell you rather that whoever may 

Discern true ends here, shall grow pure enough 
To love them, brave enough to strive for them. 
And strong enough to reach them, though 
the roads be rough. 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 235 

Step by step was worn 
As each man gained on each, securely ! 
how 
Each by his own strength sought his 
own ideal, 
The ultimate perfection leaning bright 

From out the sun and stars, to bless the leal 
And earnest search of all for fair and right, 
Through doubtful forms, by earth ac- 
counted real ! 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

August lyth. 
Hush ! if you saw some western cloud 
All billowy bosomed, over-bowed 
By many benedictions — sun's 
And moon's and evening-star's at once — 
And so, you, looking and loving best. 
Conscious grew, your passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, 
Down on you, near and yet more near. 
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! 

The Last Ride Together.— R. B. 



236 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Such life here, through such length of hours, 
Such miracles performed in play, 

Such primal naked forms of flowers, 
Such letting nature have her way 

While heaven looks from its towers ! 

How say you ? Let us, O my dove. 
Let us be unashamed of soul, 

As earth lies bare to heaven above ! 

Two in the Campagna — E. B. 

August i8th. 
Do you hear the children weeping, O my 
brothers, 
Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against 
their mothers, 
And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the mead- 
ows : 
The young birds are chirping in their nest : 
The young fawns are playing with the shad- 
ows : 
The young flowers are blowing toward the 
west: 



FBOM BROWNING 237 

But the young, young children, O my broth- 
ers, 
They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the 
others, 
In the country of the free. 

The Cry of the Children.— E. B. B. 

Patient children — think what pain 

Makes a young child patient — ponder ! 

Wronged too commonly to strain 
After right, or wish, or wonder. 
A Song for the Ragged Schools of London. — E. B. B. 

August rpth. 
Thus, at three. 
This poor weaned kid would run off from the 

fold, 
This babe would steal off from the mother's 

chair, 
And, creeping through the golden walls of 

gorse, 
Would find some keyhole toward the secrecy 



238 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Of Heaven's high blue, and, nestling down, 

peer out — 
Oh, not to catch the angels at their games, 
She had never heard of angels, — but to gaze 
She knew not why, to see she knew not what, 
A-hungering outward from the barren earth 
For something like a joy. She liked, she said. 
To dazzle black her sight against the sky, 
For then, it seemed, some grand, blind Love 

came down, 
And groped her out, and clasped her with a 

kiss; 
She learned God that way. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

The child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath. 

The Cry of the Children.— E. B. B. 

August 20th . 
Fail I alone, in words and deeds? 
Why, all men strive and who succeeds ? 
We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew, 
Saw other regions, cities new, 



FBOM BROWNING 239 



As the world rushed by on either side. 

I thought, — All labor, yet no less 

Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 

Look at the end of work, contrast 

The petty done, the undone vast, 

This present of theirs with the hopeful past ! 

What hand and brain went ever paired ? 
What heart alike conceived and dared ? 
What act proved all its thought had been ? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen ? 

The Last Bide Together.— R. B. 

August 2ISt. 
So we refresh our souls, fulfill 
Our works, our daily tasks ; and thus 
Gather you grain — earth's harvest — still. 
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial. — R- B. 

I count life just a stuff 

To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. \/ 

Who keeps one end in view makes all things 

serve. 

In a Balcony, — R. B. 



240 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

To only have conceived, 
Planned your great works, apart from progress. 
Surpasses little works achieved ! 

Waring— K. B. 

August 22d. 
Were ye wronged by me, 
Hated and tempted and undone of me, — 
Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt, 
Of hating, tempting, and so ruining ? 
The sword's hilt is the sharpest, and cuts 
through 

The hand that wields it. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

Dead-white and disarmed she lay. 
No matter for the sword, her word sufficed 
To spike the coward through and through. 
The Ring and the Book.—R. B. 

Then the sword he leant upon, shivered — 

snapped upon the stone, — 
"Sword," he thought, with inward laugh, 
'* ill thou servest for a staff 
When thy nobler use is done." 

Bhyme of the Duchess May, — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 241 

August 2jd. 

Prompt was found 
A man and man enough, heart-sober and 

heart-sound, 
Ready to hear God's voice, resolute to obey. 
Ivhn Ivhnovitch. — R. B. 

Who dared build temples, without tombs in 
sight? 
Or live, without some dead man's benison ? 
Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for 
right, 
If, looking up, he saw not in the sun 
Some angel of the martyrs all day long 
Standing and waiting ? 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

Immortal as every great soul is, that struggles, 
endures, and fulfills. 

Lord Walter's Wife.—E. B. B. 

August 24th. 
The escape from pangs of heart and bodily . J 
weakness — when you throw off your self, — 



242 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

what you feel to be yourself, — into another 
atmosphere and into other relations, where 
your life may spread its wings out new, and 
gather on every plume a brightness from the 
sun of the sun ! 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Hai-per & Brothers. 

With worthy acception of pure joy, 
Behold the trances of the holy hills 
Beneath the leaning stars ; or watch the vales 
Dew-pallid with their morning ecstasy ; 
Or hear the winds make pastoral peace be- 
tween 
Two grassy uplands, — and the river-wells 
Work out their bubbling mysteries under- 
ground — 
And all the birds sing, till for joy of song, 
They lift their trembling wings as if to heave 
The too-much weight of music from their 

heart 
And float it up the aether ! 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 243 

August 2^th. 
Eve. — By dream or sense, 
Do we see this ? 

Adam. — Our spirits have climbed high 

By reason of the passion of our 

grief, 
And from the top of sense, looked 

over sense, 
To the significance and heart of 

things 
Rather than things themselves. 

A Drama of Exile.— ^. B. B. 



. . . . as when a soul 
Will pass out through the sweetness of a song 
Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road, — 
Even so mine wandered from the things I 

heard 
To those I suffered. It was afterward 
I shaped the resolution to the act. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



244 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

August 26th. 
There was a ripe, round, long, black, tooth- 
some fruit, 
Even a flower-fig, the prime boast of May : 
And, to the tree, said . . . either the spirit 

o' the fig. 
Or, if we bring in men, the gardener, 

. . . . Well, anyhow, one with au- 
thority said 
" Ripe fig, burst skin, regale the fig-pecker — 
The bird whereof thou art a perquisite ! " 
«' Nay," with a flounce, replied the restif fig, 
'' I much prefer to keep my pulp myself: 
He may go breakfastless and dinnerless, 
Supperless of one crimson seed, for me ! " 
So, back she flopped into her bunch of 

leaves. 
He flew off, left her, — did the natural lord, — 
And lo, three hundred thousand bees and 

wasps 
Found her out, feasted on her to the shuck : 
Such gain the fig's that gave its bird no bite : 
7'he Ring and the Book, — R. B. 



FB03I BROWNING 245 

August 2yth. 

Earth Spirits. 
Yet, O mortals, do not fear us, 

We are gentle in our languor ; 
And more good ye shall have near us 
Than any pain or anger : 
And our God's refracted blessing in our 
blessing shall be given ! 

Ye shall find us tender nurses 

To your weariness of nature j 
And our hands shall stroke the curse's 
Dreary furrows from the creature, 
i ill your bodies shall lie smooth in death, 
and straight and slumberful : 

Then a couch we will provide you 

Where no summer heat shall dazzle ; 
Strewing on you and beside you 
Thyme and rosemary and basil — 
And the yew-tree shall grow overhead to keep 
all safe and cool. 

A Drama of Exile,— E, B. B. 



246 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

August 28th. 
We, who are the seed 
Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat 

Upon our antecedents, we were vile. 
Bring violets rather. If these had not walked 
Their furlong, could we hope to walk our 
mile? 
Therefore bring violets ! Yet if we, self- 
baulked. 
Stand still a-strewing violets all the while. 
These moved in vain, of whom we have 
vainly talked. 
So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile, 
And having strewn the violets, reap the corn. 
And, having reaped and garnered, bring 
the plough 
And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn. 
And plant the great Hereafter in this Now. 
Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 
We hurry onward to extinguish hell 
With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and 

God's 
Maturity of purpose. - ibid. 



FBOM BROWNING 247 

August 2pth. 
. . . . moments .... 
When the spirit's true endowments 
Stand out plainly from its false ones, 

And apprise it if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way, 

To its triumph or undoing. 



Oh, observe ! Of course, next moment, 

The world's honors, in derision, 
Trampled out the light forever ; 

Never fear but there's provision 
Of the devil's to quench knowledge 

Lest we walk the earth in rapture ! 
— Making those who catch God's secret 

Just so much more prize their capture ! 
Cristina, — R. B. 

August ^oth. 
It is amusing to me, quite amusing, to 
observe how people cannot conceive of work 
except under certain familiar forms. Men 



248 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

who dig in ditches have an idea that the man 
who leads the plow rather rests than works ; 
and all men of outdoor labor distrust the 
industry of the manufacturers indoors — 
while both manufacturers and outdoor labor- 
ers consider the holders of offices and clerk- 
ships as idle men . . . gentlemen at ease. 
Then between all these classes and the intel- 
lectual worker, the difference is wider, and 
the want of perception more complete. The 
work of creation, nobody will admit . . . 
though everybody has by heart, without lay- 
ing it to heart, that God rested on the seventh 
day. Looking up to the stars at nights, they 
might as well take all to be motionless — 
though if there were no motion there would 
be no morning . . . and they look for a 
morning after all. . . . The hedger and 
the ditcher they see working, but God they 
do not see working. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
Brothers. 



FROM BROWNING 249 

August J I St. 
But when the summer day was past, 
He looked to heaven and smiled at last. . . . 
Self answered so — 

Man and Nature.— E. B. B. 

O solemn-beating heart 
Of nature ! I have knowledge that thou art 
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever. 
A Seaside Walk.—E. B. B. 

Those who would change man's voice and use 

For Nature's way and tone — 
Man's veering heart and careless eyes, 

For Nature's steadfast sympathies. 

An JaZamf.—E. B. B. 



SEPTEMBER. 



September ist. 

Autumn has come — like Spring returned to 

us, 
Won from her girlishness — Hke one returned 
A friend that was a lover — nor forgets 
The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts 
Of fading years ; whose soft mouth quivers yet 
With the old smile — but yet so changed and 

still ! 

Pauline. — R. B. 

Sights 
Come thick and clear enough in thought. 
Without the sunshine ; souls have inner lights. 
Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

Hearts run out of breath and sight 
Of men, to God's clear light. 

Parting Lovers, — E. B. B. 



254 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

September 2d. 
Ah, Love, but a day, 

And the world has changed ! 
The sun's away. 

And the bird estranged : 
The wind has dropped, 

And the sky's deranged ; 
Summer has stopped. 

Look in my eyes ! 

Wilt thou change too? 
Should I fear surprise ? 

Shall I find ought new 
In the old and dear, 

In the good and true, 
With the changing year? 

James Zee's Wife.—K. B. 

September jd. 
As one content to merely be supposed 
Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed 
Really at home — one who was chiefly glad 
To have achieved the few real deeds he had, 



FROM BROWNING 255 

Because that way assured they were not worth 
Doing, so spared from doing them hence- 
forth— 
A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes 

Never itself, itself. 

Sordeno.--^. B. 

Each life unfulfilled, you see ; 

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy : 
We have not sighed deep, laughed free, 

Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy. 
Youth and Art. — R. B. 

September 4th. 
What a sight ! 
A holiday of miserable men 
Is sadder than a burial-day of kings. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

How, on that day you recollect at Cleves, 

When the poor acquiescing multitude 

Who thrust themselves with all their woes 

apart 
Into unnoticed corners, that the few 
Their means sufficed to muster trappings for, 



256 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Might fill the foreground, occupy your sight 
With joyous faces fit to bear away 
And boast of as a sample of all Cleves — 
How, when to daylight these crept out once 

more. 
Clutching, unconscious, each his empty rags 
Whence the scant coin, which had not half 

bought bread, 
That morn he shook forth, counted piece by 

piece. 
And, well-advisedly, on perfumes spent them 
To burn, or flowers to strew before your path. 
Colomhe's Birthday. — R. B. 

September ^th. 
A woman was once killed with gifts, 
crushed with the weight of golden bracelets 
thrown at her : and, knowing myself, I have 
wondered more than a little, how it was that 
1 could bear this strange and unused gladness, 
without sinking as the emotion rose. Only I 
was incredulous at first, and the day broke 
slowly . . . and the gifts fell like rain . . . 
softly ; and God gives strength, by His prov- 



FROM BBOWNINQ 257 

idence, for sustaining blessings as well as 
stripes. 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Har- 
per & Brothers. 

What can I give thee back, O liberal 

And princely giver, . . . who has brought 

the gold 
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, 
And laid them on the outside of the wall 
For such as I to take or leave withal, 
In unexpected largesse ? 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September 6th. 
I trust in Nature for the stable laws 
Of Beauty and Utility — Spring shall plant, 
And Autumn garner to the end of time : 
I trust in God — the Right shall be the Right 
And other than the Wrong, while He endures — 
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 
The outward and the inward, Nature's good 
And God's. 

A SouVs Tragedy.— R. B. 



258 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

One look upon earth — but one — 
Over the blue mountain-lines, 
Over the forests of palms and pines ; 
Over the harvest-lands golden ; 
Over the valleys that fold in 
The gardens and vines ! 

The Seraphim.— E. B. B. 

September yth. 
Take them from a heart that yearns to give ! 
Colombe^s Birthday. — R. B. 

Can it be right to give what I can give ? 

To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears 

As salt as mine, and hear the sighing 

years 
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative 
Through those infrequent smiles which fail to 

live 
For all thy adjurations ? O my fears, 
That this can scarce be right ! We are not 

peers, 
So to be lovers j and I own and grieve 



FROM BROWNING 259 



That givers of such gifts as mine are, must 
Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas ! 
I will not soil thy purple with my dust. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September 8th. 
Then my days spoke not, and my nights of 

fire 
Were voiceless ? Then the very heart may 

burst 
Yet all prove naught, because no mincing 

speech 
Tells leisurely that thus it is and thus ? 

A SouVs Tragedy.— R. B. 

Love like mine must have return, 
I thought : no river starts but to some sea. 
• . . . If I knew any heart, as mine 

loved you, 
Loved me, though in the vilest breast 'twere 

lodged, 
I should, I think, be forced to love again : 
Else there's no right nor reason in the world. 

Ibid. 



260 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

September gth. 
Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to He 

along in thine? 
As a little stone in a running stream, it seems 

to lie and pine ! 
Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, . , . 

unfit to plight with thine. 



Oh, wilt thou have my cheek. Dear, draw 

closer to thine own ? 
My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by 

many a tear run down. 
Now leave a little space. Dear, lest it should 

wet thine own. 



Oh, must thou have my soul. Dear, commin- 
gled with thy soul ? — 

Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand, 
... the part is in the whole ! . . . 

Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when 
soul is joined to soul. 

inclusions.— £. B. £. 



FIi03f BROWNING 261 



My heart shall grow- 
Too close against thine heart, henceforth to 

know 
How it shook when alone. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 



September loth. 
Love me, sweet, with all thou art, 

Feehng, thinking, seeing, — 
Love me in the lightest part. 

Love me in full being. 



Love me with thy thinking soul — 

Break it to love-sighing ; 
Love me with thy thoughts that roll 

On through living — dying. 

Love me with thy gorgeous airs, 
When the world has crowned thee ! 

Love me, kneeling at thy prayers, 
With the angels round thee. 



262 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Through all hopes that keep us brave, 

Further off or nigher, 
Love me for the house and grave, — 

And for something higher. 

A Man's Requirements — E. B. B. 

September nth. 
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
And be all to me ? Shall I never miss 
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss 
That comes to each in turn, nor count it 

strange. 
When I look up to drop on a new range 
Of walls and floors . . . another home than 

this? 
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know 

change ? 
That's hardest ! If to conquer love, has 

tried, 
To conquer grief tries more ... as all 

things prove, 
For grief indeed is love and grief beside. 



FEOM BROWNING 263 

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love — 
Yet love me — wilt thou ? Open thine heart 

wide, 
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. 
Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September 12th. 

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 
married September 12, 1846. 

'' First, God's love. 
And next," he smiled, ** the love of wedded 

souls. 
Which still presents that mystery's counter- 
part." 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

Beloved, let us love so well, 
Our work shall still be better for our love. 
And still our love be sweeter for our work. 
And both commended, for the sake of each, 
By all true workers and true lovers born. 

Ibid, 



264 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

For God above 
Is great to grant as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love. 
Evelyn Hope, — R. B. 

September ijth. 

" Write woman's verses and dream woman's 

dreams ; 

But let me feel your perfume in my home, 

To make my Sabbath after working-days ; 

Bloom out your youth beside me, — be my 

wife." 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

*' Till death us do part ? " Till death us do 

join past parting — that sounds like 

Betrothal indeed ! 

Martin Eelph.—R. B. 

" I ask for love. 
And that she can ; for fellowship in life 
Through bitter duties — that, I know she 

can; 
For wifehood . . . will she ? " 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 265 

That so, in gravity and holy calm, 
We two may live on toward the truer life. 

lUd, 

September 14th. 
To E. B. B. 
There they are, my fifty men and women 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, love, the book and me together : 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 



This I say of me, but think of you. Love I 
This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 
Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the 

wonder, 
Thus they see you, praise you, think they 

know you. 
There, in turn I stand with them and praise 

you. 
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 
But the best is when I glide from out them, 
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight. 



266 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Come out on the other side, the novel 
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 
Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 
One Word More.—R. B. 

September i^th. 
How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's 

faith ; 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the 

breath. 
Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God 

choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 267 

September i6th. 
" Let me get 
Her for myself, and what's the earth 
With all its art, verse, music, worth, — 
Compared with love, found, gained, and 
kept?" 

Dis Aliter Visum. — R. B. 

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — toll 
The silver iterance ! — only minding, Dear, 
To love me also in silence, with thy soul. 
Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed 

And worthy of acceptation. . . . There's 
nothing low 

In love, when love the lowest : meanest crea- 
tures 

Who love God, God accepts while loving so. 
Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September lyth. 
I am named and known by that moment's 
feat; 
There took my station and degree; 



268 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

So grew my own small life complete, 

As nature obtained her best of me — 
One born to love you, sweet ! 

And to watch you sink by the fireside 
now 

Back again, as you mutely sit 
Musing by fire-light, that great brow 

And the spirit-small hand propping it, 
Yonder, my heart knows how ! 

So, earth has gained by one man the 

more. 
And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain 

too; 
And the whole is well worth thinking o'er 
When autumn comes. 

By the Fireside.—R. B. 

September i8th. 
If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
" I love her for her smile . . . her look 
. . . her way 



FROM BROWNING 269 

Of speaking gently ... for a trick of 

thought 
That falls in well with mine, and certes 

brought 

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day " 

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
Be changed, or change for thee, — and love so 

wrought 
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks 

dry; 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. 
But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
Thou may'st love on through love's eternity. 
Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September ipth. 
Let the world's sharpness like a clasping 

knife 
Shut in upon itself and do no harm 
In this close hand of Love, now soft and 

warm: 



270 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And let us hear no sound of human strife 
After the chck of the shutting. Life to 

hfe — 
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm. 
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm, 
Against the stab of worldlings who if rife 
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still 
The lilies of our lives may reassure 
Their blossoms from their roots ! accessible 
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer ; 
Growing straight, out of man's reach on the 

hill. 
God only, who made us rich, can make us 

poor. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. — E. B. B. 

September 20th. 
Ye would withdraw your sense 
From out eternity, strain it upon time, 
Then stand before that fact, that Life and 

Death, 
Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, 
As though a star should open out, all sides, 
Grow the world on you, as it is my world. 



FROM BROWNING 271 

For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, 

And hope and fear, — believe the aged 
friend, — 

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning 
love, 

How love might be, hath been indeed, and 
is; 

And that we hold thenceforth to the utter- 
most 

Such prize despite the envy of the world, 

And, having gained truth, keep truth; that 

is all. 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

September 21st 
Ah, child, look up into the sky ! 
In this low world, where great Deeds die, 
What matter if we live ? 

A Tale of Villa-Franca.—E. B. B. 

''Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 
Me?" — God might question; now, instead, 
'Tis God shall repay : I am safer so. 

The Patriot,— K. B. 



272 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Life is probation, and this earth no goal 
But starting-point of men. 

The Ring and the Book.—R. B. 

September 22d. 
He beUeved, say, half he spoke, 
The other portion, as he shaped it thus 
For argumentatory purposes, 
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute. 
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts 
That crossed his mind, amusing because 

new, 
He chose to represent as fixtures there, 
Invariable convictions (such they seemed 
Beside his interlocutor's loose cards 
Flung daily down, and not the same way 

twice) 
While certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak 

tongue 
Is never bold to utter in their truth 
Because styled hell-deep ('tis an old mib- 

take 
To place hell at the bottom of the earth) 



FROM BROWNING 273 

He ignored these, — not having in readiness 
Their nomenclature and philosophy : 
He said true things, but called them by 
wrong names. 

Bishop Blougram^s Apology. — R. B. 

September 2}d. 
But see the double way wherein we are led, 
How the soul learns diversely from the flesh ! 
With flesh, that hath so little time to stay, 
And yields mere basement for the soul's 

emprise. 
Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the 

light, 
And warmth was cherishing and food was 

choice 
To every man's flesh, thousand years ago, 
As now to yours and mine ; the body sprang 
At once to the height, and stayed : but the 

soul, — no ! 
Since sages who, this noontide, meditate 
In Rome or Athens, may descry some point 
Of the eternal power, hid yestereve ; 



274 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And as thereby the power's whole mass ex- 
tends 
So much extends the aether floating o'er 
The love that tops the might, the Christ in 
God. 

A Death in the Desert. — R. B. 

September 24th. 
Yes, but first 

Set down thy people's faults : set down the 
want 

Of soul-conviction ; set down aims dis- 
persed, 

And incoherent means, and valor scant 

Because of scanty faith, and schisms ac- 
cursed 

That wrench these brother -hearts from cove- 
nant 

With freedom and each other. Set down 
this 

And this, and see to overcome it when 

The seasons bring the fruits thou wilt not 
miss 



FROM BROWNING 275 

If wary. Let no cry of patriot men 

Distract thee from the stern analysis 

Of masses who cry only : . . . . 

. . . . nor stand apart . . . from those 

pure 

Brave men who hold the level of thy heart 

In patriot truth. 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

September 2^th. 

Here the blot is blanched 
By God's gift of a purity of soul 
That will not take pollution, ermine-like 
Armed from dishonor by its own soft snow. 
Such was this gift of God who showed for once 
How He would have the world go white. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

A woman poor or rich, 
Despised or honored, is a human soul ; 
And what her soul is, — that she is herself, 
Although she should be spit upon of men, 
As is the pavement of the churches here. 
Still good enough to pray in. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



276 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

September 26th. 
Grief taught to me this smile, she said, 
And Wrong did teach this jesting bold ; 
. . . . ■ Behind, no prison-grate, she 
said. 
Which slurs the sunshine half a mile. 
Live captives so uncomforted. 

As souls behind a smile. 
God's pity let us pray, she said. 



If I dared leave this smile, she said, 
And take a moan upon my mouth, 

And tie a cypress round my head, 
And let my tears run smooth, — 

It were the happier way, she said. 

Ye weep for those who weep ? she said — 
Ah, fools ! I bid you pass them by ; 

Go, weep for those whose hearts have bled. 
What time their eyes were dry ! 

Whom sadder can I say ? — she said. 

The Mask.—E. B. B. 



FBOM BROWNING 277 

September lyth. 
Pure faith indeed .... 
Naked belief in God the Omnipotent, 
Omniscient, Omnipresent. 

Bishop Blougram's Apology. — R. B. 

Rehgion's all or nothing ; it's no mere smile 
O' contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir — 
No quality o' the finelier-tempered clay 
Like its whiteness or its lightness ; rather, 

stuff 
O' the very stuff, life of life, and self of self. 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.''— R. B. 

Your business is not to catch men with show. 
With homage to the perishable clay, 
But lift them over it, ignore it all, 
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 
Fra Lippo Lippi. — R. B. 

September 2Sth. 
A solemn thing it is to me 
To look upon a babe that sleeps — 
Wearying in its spirit-deeps 
The undeveloped mystery 



278 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Of its Adam's taint and woe, 
Which, when they developed be, 
Will not let it slumber so : 

O little lids, now folded fast. 
Must ye learn to drop at last 
Our large and burning tears ? 
O warm, quick body, must thou lie, 
When the time comes round to die, 
Still from all the whirl of years. 
Bare of all the joy and pain ? 
O small frail being, wilt thou stand 
At God's right hand, 
Lifting up those sleeping eyes, 
Dilated by great destinies. 
To an endless waking ? 

IsoheVa Child.— E. B. B. 

September 2gth, 
Chorus of Invisible Angels : 

Hear our heavenly promise 
Through your mortal passion I 

Love ye shall have from us, 
In a pure relation ! 



FEOM BROWNING 279 



As a fish or bird 

Swims or flies, if moving, 

We unseen are heard 
To live on by loving. 

Far above the glances 
Of your eager eyes, 

Listen ! we are loving ! 

Listen, through man's ignorances — 
Listen, through God's mysteries — 
Listen down the heart of things. 
Ye shall hear our mystic wings 

Murmurous with loving ! 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 

September joth. 

Chorus of Invisible Angels : 

When your bodies therefore. 

Reach the grave their goal. 
Softly we will care for 
Each enfranchised soul ! 

There a sough of glory 
Shall breathe on you as you come, 



280 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Ruffling round the doorway 
All the light of angeldom. 

From the empyrean centre 
Heavenly voices shall repeat — 

" Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter ; 
For the chrism on you is sweet. ' ' 

And every angel in the place 

Lowlily shall bow his face, 
Folded fair on softened sounds, 

Because upon your hands and feet 
He images his Master's wounds. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 



OCTOBER. 



October ist 
Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old 
earth, 
This autumn morning ! How he sets his 
bones 
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and 

feet 
For the ripple to run over in its mirth : 
Listening the while, where on the heap of 
stones 
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; 
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and 
knows. 
If you loved only what were worth your love. 
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for 
you : 
Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 
James Lee^a Wife.—R. B. 



284 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October 2d. 

Through the blue Immense 

Strike out all swimmers ! cling not in the way 

Of one another, so to sink ; but learn 

The strong man's impulse, catch the fresh- 

'ning spray 
He throws up in his motions, and discerns 
By his clear westering eye, the time of day. 
Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn, 
Besides Thy heaven and Thee ! and when I 

say 
There's room here for the weakest man alive 
To live and die, — there's room too, I repeat. 
For all the strongest to live well and strive, 
Their own way, by their individual heat, — 
Like a new bee-swarm leaving the old hive, 
Despite the wax which tempts so violent- 
sweet. 

Ca»a Quidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

October ^d. 
The sun comes out again ; 
Let us be happy : all will yet go well ! 
Let us confer : is it not like, Aprile, 



FEOM BROWNING 285 

That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed, 

The value of my labors ascertained, 

Just as some stream foams long among the 

rocks 
But after glideth glassy to the sea, 
So, full content shall henceforth be my lot ? 

. . . . Do you ask 
How could I still remain on earth, should 
God 

Grant me the great approval which I seek ? 
. . . . But men would murmur, and with 

cause enough ; 
For when they saw me, stainless of all sin, 
Preserved and sanctified by inward light. 
They would complain that comfort, shut from 

them, 
I drank thus unespied ; that they live on, 
Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy, 
For ache and care and doubt and weariness, 
While I am calm ; help being vouchsafed to 

me. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



286 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October 4th. 
Who staggeringly, stumblingly, rises, falls, 

rises, at random flings his weight 
On and on, anyhow onward ! 

Martin Eelph.—R. B. 

Well, onward, though alone ! Small time 

remains, 
And much to do: I must have fruit, must 

reap 
Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body 
Will hardly serve me through ; while I have 

labored 
It has decayed ; and now that I demand 
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast : 
A sad thought, a sad fate ! How very full 
Of wormwood 'tis, that just at altar-service, 
The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke, 
When glory dawns and all is at the best, 
The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint 
And die for want of a wood-piler's help ! 
Thus fades the flagging body. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



FEOM BROWNING 287 

October ^th. 
Small spheres hold small fires : 
But he loved largely, as a man can love 
Who baffled in his love, dares live his life. 
Accept the ends which God loves for his 

own, 
And lift a constant aspect. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



A man may love a woman perfectly, 
And yet by no means ignorantly maintain 
A thousand women have not larger eyes : 
Enough that she alone has looked at him 
With eyes that, small or large, have won 
his soul. 

Ihid. 



He can stand alone ; 
A man like him is never overcome ; 
No woman like me, counts him pitiable 
While saints applaud him. 

Jhid. 



288 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



October 6th. 
Say I not '' you'll hear me now ! " 
And what procures a man the right to speak 
In his defence before his fellow-man, 
But — I suppose — the thought that presently 
He may have leave to speak before his God 
His whole defence ? 

A Blot in the ^Scutcheon. — R. B. 

Haste 
And anger have undone us. 

Ihid. 

The thing I pity most 
In men is — action prompted by surprise 
Of anger : men ? nay, bulls — whose onset 

lies 
At instance of the firework and the goad ! 
Once the foe prostrate, — trampling once be- 
stowed, — 
Prompt follows placability, regret, 
Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never 

yet 
Betokened strong will ! 

A Forgiveness. — R. B. 



FEOM BBOWNINQ 289 

October yth. 
Bring us the higher example ; release us 
Into the larger coming time : 
. . . . No more of Jew or Greek then — 
taunting 
Nor taunted ; no more England nor France ! 
But one confederate brotherhood, planting 

One flag only, to mark the advance, 
Onward and upward, of all humanity. 

For fully developed Christianity 

Is civilization perfected. 

** Measure the frontier," shall be said, 

" Count the ships," in national vanity? 

— Count the nation's heart-beats sooner. 

Each Christian nation shall take upon her 

The law of the Christian man in vast : 
The crown of the getter shall fall to the 
donor. 
And last shall be first while first shall be 
last. 

Italy and the World.— E. B. B. 



290 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October 8th. 

Oh, be sure, 
You, everybody blunders, just as I, 
In simpler things than these by far ! For see : 
I knew two farmers, — one, a wiseacre 
Who studied seasons, rummaged almanacs. 
Quoted the dew-point, registered the frost, 
And then declared, for outcome of his pains, 
Next summer must be dampish : 'twas a 

drought. 
His neighbor prophesied such drought would 

fall, 
Saved hay and corn, made cent, per cent. 

thereby. 
And proved a sage indeed : how came his lore ? 
Because one brindled heifer, late in March, 
Stiffened her tail of evenings, and somehow 
He got into his head a drought was meant ! 
Mr. Sludge, '' The Medium.''— R. B. 

October gth. 
That pale soft sweet disempassioned moon 
Which smiles me slow forgiveness ! 

Numjpholeptoa, — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 291 

And saintly moonlight seemed to search 
And wash the whole world clean as gold. 

Bianca Among the Nightingales. — E. B. B. 

A warm moon like a happy face. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

But oh, the night ! oh, bitter-sweet ! oh, 

sweet ! 

O dark, O moon and stars, O ecstasy 

Of darkness ! 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

The comfort thou hast caused mankind, 

God's moon ! 

In a Balcony. — R. B. 

October roth. 
Festus : 

But all comes 
To the same thing. 'Tis fruitless for man- 
kind 
To fret themselves with what concerns them 

not; 
They are no use that way : they should lie 
down 



292 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Content as God has made them, nor go mad 
In thriveless cares to better what is ill. 

Paracelsus : 

No, no ; mistake me not ; let me not work 

More harm than I have worked ! This is my 

case: 
If I go joyous back to God, yet bring 
No offering, if I render up my soul 
Without the fruits it was ordained to bear, 
If I appear the better to love God 
For sin, as one who has no claim on Him, — 
Be not deceived ! It may be surely thus 
With me, while higher prizes still await 
The mortal persevering to the end. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

October nth. 
Tears, tears ! why we weep ? 
'Tis worth inquiry? — That we've shamed a 

life. 
Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps ? 
By no means. Simply, that we've walked 
too far, 



FBOM BROWNING 293 

Or talked too much, or felt the wind i' the 

east, — 
And so we weep, as if both body and soul 
Broke up in water. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B, 

We cannot say the morning sun fulfills 
Ingloriously its course : nor that the clear 
Strong stars without significance insphere 
Our habitation. We, meantime, our ills 
Heap up against this good ; and lift a cry 
Against this work-day world, this ill-spread 

feast. 
As if ourselves were better certainly 
Than what we come to. 

Adequacy. — E, B. B. 

October 12th. 
But why do I mount to poets ? Take plain 

prose — 
Dealers in common sense, set these at work, 
What can they do without their helpful 

lies? 



294 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Each states the law and fact and face o' the 

thing 
Just as he'd have them, finds what he thinks 

fit, 
Is blind to what missuits him, just records 
What makes his case out, quite ignores the 

rest. 
It's a History of the World, the Lizard Age, 
The Early Indians, the Old Country War, 
Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please. 
All as the author wants it. Such a scribe 
You pay and praise for putting life in stones, 
Fire into fog, making the past your world. 
There's plenty of *' How did you contrive to 

grasp 
The thread which led you through this laby- 
rinth ? 
How build such solid fabric out of air ? 
How on so slight foundation found this tale, 
Biography, narrative?" or, in other words, 
** How many lies did it require to make 
The portly truth you here present us with?" 
Mr. Sludge, " The 3Iedium."—R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 295 

October ijth. 
Why, what right have you, made fair by that 
same God — the sweetest woman 
Of all women He has fashioned — with 
your lovely spirit-face. 
Which would seem too near to vanish if its 
smile were not so human, 
And your voice of holy sweetness, turning 
common words to grace. 

What right can you have, God's other works 
to scorn, despise, revile them 

In the gross, as mere men, broadly — not as 
no^/e men, forsooth, — 

As mere Pariahs of the outer world ? 

Lady Geraldine's Courtship. — E. B. B. 



What could such lovely ladies have to do 
With the old man there, in those ill-odorous 

rags. 
Except to keep the wind-side of him ? 

Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 



296 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



I would be bold and bear 
To look into the swarthiest face of things, 
For God's sake who has made them. 

lUd. 

October 14th. 

Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul 
Might learn from its own motions that some 

task 
Like this awaited it about the world ; 
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of 

ours 
For fit delights to stay its longings vast ; 
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her 
To fill the creature full she dared thus 

frame 
Hungry for joy : . . . . 

Doubtless a strong soul, 
Alone, unaided might attain to this, 
So glorious is our nature, so august 
Man's inborn, uninstructed impulses, 
His naked spirit so majestical ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



FBOM BROWNING 297 

October i^th. 
When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids 

lay 
The sweet lights of my childhood, one by 

one 
Did leave me dark before the natural sun, 
And I astonished fell, and could not pray, 
A thought within me to myself did say, 
*'Is God less God that thou art left un- 
done? 
Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth 

spun, 
As in that purple ! " — But I answered, Nay ! 
What child his filial heart in words can 

loose, 
If he behold his tender father raise 
The hand that chastens sorely? can he 

choose 
But sob in silence with an upward gaze ? — 
And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise, 
Discerns in speechless tears, both prayer and 

praise. 

Bereavement. — E. B. B. 



298 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October i6th. 
A few daylight doses of plain life. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

What does the father when his son lies 

dead, 
The merchant when his money bags take 

wing, 
The politician whom a rival ousts ? 
No case but has its conduct faith prescribes, 
Where's the obedience that shall edify? 
Why, they laugh frankly in the face of 

faith 
And take the natural course : this rends his 

hair 
Because his child is taken to God's breast; 
That gnashes teeth and raves at loss of 

trash 
Which rust corrupts and thieves break 

through and steal ; 
And this, enabled to inherit earth 
Through meekness, curses till your blood 

runs cold. 

The Ring and the Book, — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 299 

October lyth. 
"To-day thou girdest up thy loins thyself, 
And goest where thou wouldest : presently 
Others shall gird thee," said the Lord, 

''to go 
When thou would' st not." He spoke to 

Peter thus. 
To signify the death which he should die 
When crucified head downward. If He 

spoke 
To Peter then, He speaks to us the same ; 
The word suits many different martyrdoms, 
And signifies a multiform of death. 
Although we scarcely die apostles, we. 
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and 

earth. 
For 'tis not in mere death that men die 

most; 
And, after our first girding of the loins 
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery 
To run up hill and meet the rising sun. 
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool. 
While others gird us with the violent bands 



300 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Of social figments, feints, and formalisms. 
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up 
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty 

thoughts. 
Head -downward on the cross-sticks of the 

world. 
Yet He can pluck us from that shameful 

cross. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

October i8th. 
" We must be here to work ; 
And men who work can only work for men. 
And, not to work in vain, must comprehend 
Humanity, and so work humanly. 
And raise men's bodies still by raising souls. 
As God did first." 

" But stand upon the earth," 
I said, " to raise them, — (this is human too ; 
There's nothing high which has not first been 

low, 
My humbleness, said One, has made me 

great ! ) 
As God did last." 



FROM BROWNING 301 

** And work all silently, 
And simply," he returned, '* as God does all ; 
Distort our nature never for our work, 
Nor count our right hands stronger for being 

hoofs. 
The man most man, with tenderest human 

hands, 
Works best for men, — as God in Nazareth." 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

October igth. 
Two poor ignoble hearts who did their best 
Part God's way, part the other way than 

God's, 
To somehow make a shift and scramble 

through 
The world's mud. 

The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

Lilies are still lilies, pulled 
By smutty hands, though spotted from their 
white. 

Aurora Leigh — E. B. B. 



302 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Flower from root, 
And spiritual from natural, grade by grade 
In all our life. A handful of the earth 
To make God's image ! the despised poor earth, 
The healthy odorous earth. 

lUd. 

October 20th. 

The man here, once so arrogant 
And resdess, so ambitious, for his part, 
. . . . Is now contented. From his 

personal loss 
He has come to hope for others when they lose. 
And wear a gladder faith in what we gain, 
Through bitter experience, compensation 

sweet, — 
. . . . I am quiet now. 
As tender surely for the suffering world. 
But quiet, — sitting at the wall to learn. 
Content henceforth to do the thing I can : 
For, though as powerless, said I, as a stone, 
A stone can still give shelter to a worm, 
And it is worth while being a stone for that. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



FR03I BROWNING 303 

There is no duty patent in the world 
Like daring try be good and true myself. 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

October 21 si. 
Let us give 
The blessing of our souls, and wish them 
strong 
To bear it to the height where prayers arrive, 
When faithful spirits pray against a wrong ; 
To this great cause of southern men, who 
strive 
In God's name for man's rights, and shall 
not fail ! 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Right- 
eousness, 

Constrain the anguished world from sin and 
grief. 

Pierce them with conscience, purge them 
with redress. 

And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! 

Ibid, 



304 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Good 
And glory are not different. Announce law 
By freedom ; exalt chivalry by peace. 

Ibid. 

October 22d. 
Oh, to look back ! It is so wonderful to 
me to look back on my life and my old phi- 
losophy of life, made of the necessities of 
sorrow and the resolution to attain to some- 
thing better than a perpetual moaning and 
complaint, — to that state of neutralized emo- 
tion to which I did attain — that serenity 
which meant failure of hope ! 

— From Tlie Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

The cruelty of the world, and the treason 
of it — the unworthiness of the dearest ; of 
these griefs I have scanty knowledge. It 
seems to me from my personal experience 
that there is kindness everywhere in different 



FROM BROWNING 305 

proportions, and more goodness and tender- 
heartedness than we read of in the moralists. 

Ibid. 

October 2^d. 
My own East ! 
How nearer God we were ! He glows above 
With scarce an intervention, presses close 
And palpitatingly, His soul o'er ours ! 
We feel Him, nor by painful reason know ! 
The everlasting minute of creation 
Is felt there ; now it is, as it was then ; 
All changes at His instantaneous will. 
Not by the operation of a law 
Whose maker is elsewhere at other work. 
His hand is still engaged upon His world — 
Man's praise can forward it, man's prayers 

suspend. 
For is not God all-mighty ? To recast 
The world, erase old things and make them 

new. 

What costs it Him? So, man breathes nobly 

there ! 

Luria. — R. B, 



306 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October 24th. 

We talk by aggregates, 
And think by systems ; and, being used to 

face 
Our evils in statistics, are inclined 
To cap them with unreal remedies 
Drawn out in haste on the other side of thi 

slate. 
. . . . If we pray at all, 
We pray no longer for our daily bread. 
But next centenary's harvests. If we give, 
Our cup of water is not tendered till 
We lay down pipes and found a Company 
With Branches. . . . 
A woman cannot do the thing she ought. 
Which means whatever perfect thing she can, 
In life, in art, in science, but she fears 
To let the perfect action take her part 
And rest there: she must prove what she 

can do 
Before she does it, — prate of woman's 

rights. 
Of woman's mission, woman's function, till 



FBOM BROWNING 307 

The men (who are prating too on their side) 

cry, 
*< A woman's function plainly is — to talk." 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

October 2^th. 

But bring not near the solemn corse, a type 
of human seeming ! 

Lay only dust's stern verity upon the dust un- 
dreaming. 

And while the calm perpetual stars shall look 
upon it solely. 

Her sphered soul shall look on them, with 
eyes more bright and holy. 

Nor mourn, O living one, because her part 

in life was mourning. 
Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish 

of the burning ? — 
The minstrel's harp, for the strained string ? 

the tripod, for the afflated 
Woe ? or the vision, for those tears, in which 

it shone dilated ? 

Felicia Hemans. — E. B. B. 



308 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Ah, we know 
Too much here, not to know what's best for 

peace ; 
We have too much light here, not to want 
more fire 
To purify and end us. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

October 26th. 
Nor shall my memory want a home in yours — 
Alas, that it requires too well such free 
Forgiving love as shall embalm it there ! 
For if you would remember me aright — 
As I was born to be — you must forget 
All fitful, strange, and moody waywardness 
Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell 
Only on moments such as these, dear friends ! 
— My heart no truer, but my words and ways 
More true to it : as Michal, some months hence, 
Will say, ^' this autumn was a pleasant time," 
For some few sunny days ; and overlook 
Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves. 
Autumn would fain be sunny — I would look 



FIi03I BROWNING 



Liker my nature's truth \ and both are frail, 
And both beloved for all their frailty ! 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

October 2yth. 

The world 

Lives out of doors, sir — not with you and me 

By presence-chamber porches, stateroom 

stairs, 
Whatever warmth's perpetual: outside' s free 
To every wind from every compass-point. 
And who may get nipped needs be weather- 



Colombe's Birthday. — R. B. 

With smiles they drew 
From outward Nature, still kept new 
From their own inward nature true. 

A Vision of Poets. — E. B. B. 

And those who heard it understood 
Something of life in spirit and blood — 
Something of Nature's fair and good. 

lUd. 



310 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October 28th. 
The chivalry 
That dares the right, and disregards alike 
The yea and nay o' the world. 

The Ring and the Book.—R. B. 

These fire-hearts sowed our furrows when 
The world was worthy of such men. 

A Vision of Poets.— E. B. B. 

Take the old way, trod when men were men ! 
The Ring and the Book. — K. B. 

Recipes 
. . . . For wrestling with luxurious 

lounging sleeves, 
And acting heroism without a scratch. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B, 

October 2gth. 
I know you, and the lofty spirit you bear, 
. . . . These are the trials meet for 

such as you. 
Nor must you hope exemption : to be mortal 
Is to be plied with trials manifold. 



FEOM BROWNING 311 

Look round ! The obstacles which have kept 

the rest 
Of men from your ambition, you have 

spurned ; 
Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind 

them best, 
Were wax before your resolute soul, which 

nought 
Avails to awe, save these delusions, bred 
From its own strength, its selfsame strength, 

disguised — 
Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole ! 

Since 
The rabbit has his shade to frighten him, 
The fawn the rustling bough, mortals their 

cares, 
And higher natures yet their power to 

laugh 
At these entangling fantasies, as you 
At trammels of a weaker intellect. 
Measure your mind's height by the shade it 

casts ! 

Paracelsus, — R. B. 



312 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

October joth. 
How sure it is, 
That, if we say a true word, instantly 
We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on 
As bread at sacrament we taste and pass 
Nor handle for a moment, as indeed 
We dared to set up any claim to such ! 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

He too received his sacramental gift 
With eucharistic meanings ; for he loved. 
Aurora Leigh, — E. B, B. 

And, for I am a man, I dare not do 
God's work, until assured I see with God. 
The Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

October J I St. 
*Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream 

More hard, in Babel's street ; 
But if the soulless creatures deem 

Their music not unmeet 
For sunless walls — let us begin, 
Who wear immortal wings within I 



FROM BROWNING 313 



To me, fair memories belong 
Of scenes that used to bless ; 

For no regret, but present song, 
And lasting thankfulness ; 

And very soon to break away, 

Like types, in purer things than they. 

I will have hopes that cannot fade. 
For flowers the valley yields ; 

I will have humble thoughts instead 
Of silent dewy fields ; 

My spirit and my God shall be 

My sea-ward hill, my boundless sea ! 
The Doves.— E. B. B. 



NOVEMBER. 



November ist 

Oh, beautiful 
Art thou, Earth, albeit worse 
Than in heaven is called good ! 
Good to us, that we may know 
Meekly from thy good to go ; 
While the holy, crying Blood 
Puts its music, kind and low, 
'Twixt such ears as are not dull, 

And thine ancient curse ! 
Praised be the mosses soft 
In thy forest pathways oft. 
And the thorns, which make us think 
Of the thornless river-brink. 

Where the ransomed tread ! 
Praised be thy sunny gleams. 
And the storm, that worketh dreams 

Of calm unfinished ! 



318 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

And thy night-time's solemn need, 
When in God's dear book we read 

No night shall be therein. 
Praised be thy dwellings warm, 
By household fagot's cheerful blaze, 
Where, to hear of pardoned sin, 
Pauseth oft the merry din, 
Save the babe's upon the arm. 
Who croweth to the crackling wood. 
Yea, and better understood. 
Praised be thy dwellings cold, 
Hid beneath the churchyard mould, 
Where the bodies of the saints. 
Separate from earthly taints, 
Lie asleep, in blessing bound, 
Waiting for the trumpet's sound 
To free them into blessing ; — none 
Weeping more beneath the sun. 

Earth and Her Praisers. — E. B. B. 

November 2d. 
As light November snows to empty nests. 
As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed 
stones, 



FROM BROWNING 319 

As July suns to ruins through the rents, 

As ministering spirits to mourners, through a 

loss, 
As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of 

death 
He came uncalled wherever grief had come. 
Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 

She told me how he had raised and rescued her 
With reverent pity, as, in touching grief. 
He touched the wounds of Christ, — and made 

her feel 
More self-respecting. Hope, he called, be- 
lief 
In God, — work, worship . . . therefore let 



us pray ! 



lUd. 



November jd. 
By anguish which made pale the sun, 
I hear Him charge His saints that none 
Among the creatures anywhere 
Blaspheme against Him with despair, 
However darkly days go on. 



320 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

For us, . . . whatever' s undergone, 
Thou knowest, wiliest what is done, 
Grief may be joy misunderstood : 
Only the Good discerns the good. 
I trust Thee while my days go on. 

I praise Thee while my days go on, 
I love Thee while my days go on ! 
Through dark and dearth, through fire 

and frost. 
With emptied arms and treasure lost 
I thank Thee while my days go on ! 

De Frofundis.—E. B. B. 

November 4th. 
Power — neither put forth blindly, nor con- 
trolled 
Calmly by perfect knowledge ; to be used 
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and 

fear : 
Knowledge — not intuition, but the slow 
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, 



FBOM BROWNING 321 

Strengthened by love : love — not serenely 

pure, 
But strong from weakness, like a chance- 
sown plant 
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth 

changed buds 
And softer strains, unknown in happier 

climes ; 
Love which endures and doubts and is op- 
pressed 
And cherished, suffering much and much 

sustained, 
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love, 
A haif-enlightened, often-chequered trust : — 
Hints and previsions of which faculties. 
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about 
The inferior natures, and all lead up 

higher. 
All shape out dimly the superior race, 
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out 

false 
And man appears at last. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 



322 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

November ^th. 

One man shall crawl 

Through life, surrounded with all stirring 

things, 
Unmoved — and he goes mad ; and from the 

wreck 
Of what he was, by his wild talk alone. 
You first collect how great a spirit he hid. 
Therefore set free the soul alike in all. 
Discovering the true laws by which the 

flesh 
Bars in the spirit ! We may not be doomed 
To cope with seraphs, but at least the 

rest 
Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, 

God! 
But elevate the race at once ! We ask 
To put forth just our strength, our human 

strength, 
All starting fairly, all equipped alike. 
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted — 
. . . . And why should I be sad, or 

lorn of hope ? 



FROM BROWNING 323 

Why ever make man's good distinct from 

God's? 
Or finding they are one, why dare mistrust ? 
Paracelsus. — R. B. 

November 6th. 
Dear and ancient trees 
My fathers planted and I loved so well ! 
. . . . Oh, nevermore for me shall 

winds intone 
With all your tops a vast antiphony, 
Demanding and responding in God's praise ! 
A Blot in the ^Scutcheon. — R. B. 

The night, late strewn with clouds and fly- 
ing stars, 
Is blank and motionless : how peaceful sleep 
The tree-tops all together ! Like an asp 
The wind slips whispering from bough to 
bough ! 

Ay ; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree 
By the hour, nor count time lost. 

Paracelsiis. — R. B. 



324 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

November yth. 
Yet here are we two; we have love, house 
enough, 
With the field there, 
This house of four rooms, that field red and 
rough, 
Though it yield there. 
For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a 

bent ; 
If a magpie alight now, it seems an event ; 
And they both will be gone at November's 
rebuff. 

But why must cold spread? but wherefore 

bring change 

To the spirit, 

God meant should mate His with an infinite 

range, 

And inherit 

His power to put life in the darkness and cold ? 

Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold ! 

Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter 

estrange ! 

James Lee's Wife, — R. B. 



FE03f BROWNING 325 

November 8th. 
The house is waste to-day, — 
The leaf has dropt from the spray, 
The thorn, prickt through to the song : 
If summer doeth no wrong 
The winter will, they say. 
Sing, Heart ! what heart replies ? 
In vain we were calm and wise, 
If the tears unkissed stand in our eyes. 



Howbeit all is not lost : 
The warm noon ends in frost. 
The worldly tongues of promise. 
Like sheep-bells, die off from us 
On the desert hills cloud -crossed ! 
Yet through the silence shall 
Pierce the death-angel's call. 
And ''come up hither," recover all. 

Heart, wilt thou go ? 
''I go! 

Broken hearts triumph so." 

Calls on the Heai-t.—E. B. B. 



326 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

November gth. 
Not on the vulgar mass 
Called *' work," must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the 
price ; 
O'er which, from level stand, 
The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value 
in a trice. 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb, 
So passed in making up the main account ; 

All instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure. 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled 
the man's amount. 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act. 
Fancies that broke through language and 
escaped ; 



FROM BROWNING 327 

All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the 
pitcher shaped. 

Rahbi Ben Ezra. — K. B. 

November loth. 

"In his opinion, my case is desperate." 
**But I tell you that it is not. Nobody's 
case is desperate when the will is not at fault. 
And a woman's will when she wills thor- 
oughly as I hope you do, is strong enough to 
overcome. When I hear people say that 
circumstances are against them I always re- 
tort, . . . you mean that your will is not 
with you f I believe in the will, I have faith 
in it." 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1399, by Harper & 
Brothers. 

A woman's will dies hard, in the hall or on 
the sward. 

Rhyme of the Duchess May.—E. B. B. 



328 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

My will runneth as my blood. 

IMd. 



November nth. 

Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this 
world : look at a blossom — it drops presently, 
having done its service and lasted its time ; 
but fruits succeed, and where would be the 
blossom's place could it continue? As well 
affirm that your eye is no longer in your body, 
because its earliest favorite, whatever it may 
have first loved to look on, is dead and done 
with — as that any affection is lost to the soul 
when its first object, whatever happened first 
to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. 
Keep but ever looking, whether with the 
body's eye or the mind's, and you will soon 
find something to look on ! Has a man done 
wondering at women ? — there follow men, 
dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done 
wondering at men ? — there's God to wonder 
at. 

Plppa Passes. — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 329 

November 12th. 

The fox-dam, hunger-pined, will slay the 
felon sire 

Who dares assault her whelp: the beaver, 
stretched on fire, 

Will die without a groan : no pang avails to 
wrest 

Her young from where they hide — her sanc- 
tuary breast. 

What's here then? Answer me, thou dead 
one, as, I trow. 

Standing at God's own bar. He bids thee 
answer now ! 

Thrice crowned wast thou — each crown of 
pride, a child — thy charge ! 

Where are they ? Lost ? Enough : no need 
that thou enlarge 

On how or why the loss : life left to utter 
"lost" 

Condemns itself beyond appeal. The sol- 
dier's post 

Guards from the foe's attack the camp he 
sentinels : 



330 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

That he no traitor proved, this and this only 

tells — 
Over the corpse of him trod foe to foe's 

success. 

Ivdbn Ivanovitch, — R. B. 

But if I die here alone, then I die, whom am 
but one 
And die nobly for them all. 

Ehyme of the Duchess May.—E. B. B. 

November ijth. 
How well I know what I mean to do 

When the long dark autumn evenings come : 
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue ? 

With the music of all thy voices, dumb 
In life's November too ! 

Oh, the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, 
And thorny balls, each three in one. 

The chestnuts throw on our path in showers ! 
For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun, 

These early November hours. 



FROM BROWNING 331 

For my heart had a touch of the woodland- 
time, 
Wanting to sleep now over its best. 
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, 

But bring to the last leaf no such test ! 
" Hold the last fast ! " runs the rhyme. 

By the Fireside. — R. B. 

November 14th. 
A death-heat is 
The same as life-heat, to be accurate ; 
And in all nature is no death at all. 
As men account of death, as long as God 
Stands witnessing for life perpetually, 
By being just God. That's abstract truth, 

I know. 
Philosophy, or sympathy with God : 
But I, I sympathize with man. 
And when I stand beside a dying bed, 
It's death to me. Observe, — it had not 

much 
Consoled the race of mastodons to know 
Before they went to fossil, that anon 



332 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Their place would quicken with the ele- 
phant ; 
They were not elephants, but mastodons : 
And I, a man, as men are now and not 
As men may be hereafter, feel with men 
In the agonizing present. 

Av/rora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

November i^th. 
I do believe a brother's love 
For a sole sister must exceed them all. 
For see now, only see ! there's no alloy 
Of earth that creeps into the perfectest gold 
Of other loves — no gratitude to claim ; 
You never gave her life, not even aught 
That keeps life — never tended her, instructed, 
Enriched her — so your love can claim no 

right 
O'er her save pure love's claim : that's what 

I call 
Freedom from earthliness. You'll never hope 
To be such friends, for instance, she and 

you, 



FROM BROWNING 333 



As when you hunted cowslips in the woods 

Or played together in the meadow hay. 

Oh yes — with age, respect comes, and your 

worth 
Is felt, there's growing sympathy of tastes, 
There's ripened friendship, there's confirmed 

esteem : 
— Much head these make against the new 

comer ! 
. . • . I think, am sure, a brother's 

love exceeds 
All the world's love in its unworldliness. 

A Blot in the ^ Scutcheon— K. B. 

November i6th. 
For she will not fleck 
World's sunshine with a finger. Sympathy 
Must call her in Love's name ! and then, I 

know, 
She rises up, and brightens as she should, 
And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow 
In nothing of high-hearted fortitude. 

2\uo Sketches.— 'E. B. B. 



334 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Never one 
So sweet and true, and pure and beautiful. 
TJie Ring and the Book. — R. B. 

Calm she lifts her trusting face, and calleth 

upon God. 

The Young Queen, — E. B. B. 

November lyth. 
Men who might 
Do greatly in a universe that breaks 
And burns, must ever kiiow before they do. 
Courage and patience are but sacrifice ; 
A sacrifice is offered for and to 
Something conceived of. Each man pays a 

price 
For what himself counts precious, whether 

true 
Or false the appreciation it implies. 
But here, — no knowledge, no conception, 

nought ! 
Desire was absent, that provides great deeds 
From out the greatness of prevenient thought : 
And action, action, like a flame that needs 



FROM BROWNING 335 

A steady breath and fuel, being caught 
Up, like a burning reed from other reeds, 
Flashed in the empty and uncertain air. 
Then wavered, then went out. Behold, who 

blames 
A crooked course, when not a goal is there ? 
. . . . An ignorance of means may 

minister 
To greatness, but an ignorance of aims 
Makes it impossible to be great at all. 

Casa Guidi Windows, — E. B. B. 

November i8th. 
And yet He has made dark things 
To be glad and merry as light. 
There's a little dark bird, sits and sings; 

There's a dark stream ripples out of sight ; 
And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass, 
And the sweetest stars are made to pass 
O'er the face of the darkest night. 

The Runaway Slave. — E. B. B. 

Why the poorest brown butterfly will seek 
out a brown stone in a gravel walk, or brown 



336 BEAUTIFUL TB OUGHTS 

leaf in a flower-bed, to settle on and be 
happy. 

— From I'he Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothers. 

November igth. 
As I dare approach that Heaven 
Which has not bade a living thing despair, 
Which needs no code to keep its grace from 

stain, 
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it 
Desist and be forgiven, — I forgive not, 
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of 
souls ! 

A Blot in the ^Scutcheon. — R. B. 

And, so, pity us, 
Ye gentle Spirits, and pardon him and me. 
And let some tender peace, made of our 

pain, 
Grow up betwixt us, as a tree might grow 
With boughs on both sides. In the shade oi 

which. 



FROM BBOWNINQ 337 

When presently ye shall behold us dead, — 
For the poor sake of our humility, 
Breathe out your pardon on our breathless lips. 
A Drama of Exile.— ^. B. B. 

November 20th. 

I have too much indifference to the opin- 
ions of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown — by no 
means anxious to have his notions agree with 
mine. Smith thinks Cromwell a canting 
villain, — Brown beheves no dissenter can be 
saved, — and I repeat Goethe's **Be it your 
unerring rule, ne'er to contradict a fool, for 
if folly choose to brave you, all your wis- 
dom cannot save you ! " 

— From The Letters of Robert Broivning and Eliz- 
abeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by Harper 
& Brothel's. 

First you deliver your phrase 
— Nothing profound, that I see, 

Fit in itself for much blame or much praise — 
Answered no less, where no answer needs 
be: 



338 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

One says his say with a difference ; 
More of expounding, explaining ; 

All is now wrangle, abuse, vociferance ; 
Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-re- 
straining : 
Five, though, stands out all the stiffer 
hence. 

Master Hugues of Saxa-Gotha. — R. B. 

November 21st. 
Which is the weakest thing of all 

Mine heart can ponder ? 
The sun, a little cloud can pall 

With darkness yonder ? 
The cloud, a little wind can move 

Where'er it listeth ? 
The wind, a little leaf above. 

Though sere, resisteth ? 

What time that yellow leaf was green, 

My days were gladder ; 
But now, whatever Spring may mean, 

I must grow sadder. 



FROM BROWNING 339 

Ah me ! a leaf with sighs can wring 

My lips asunder — 
Then is mine heart the weakest thing 

Itself can ponder. 

The Weakest Thing E. B. B. 

November 22d. 
We shall march prospering, — not through his 
presence ; 
Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his 
quiescence, 
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade 
aspire : 
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul 
more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath 
untrod, 
One more devil' s-triumph and sorrow for 
angels, 
One wrong more to man, one more insult 
to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back 
to us ! 



340 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of 
twilight, 
Never glad confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike 
gallantly, 
Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowledge ana 
wait us. 
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 
The Lost Leader.— ^. B. 

November 2jd. 
Just is he, 
Who is just for the popular due 
As well as the private debt. 
The praise of nations ready to perish 
Fall on him, — crown him in view 
Of tyrants caught in the net, 
And statesmen dizzy with fear and doubt ! 
And though, because they are many, 

And he is merely one, 
And nations selfish and cruel 
Heap up the inquisitor's fuel^ 



FBOM BROWNING 341 

To kill the body of high intents, 
And burn great deeds from their place, 
. . . . Courage, whoever circumvents ! 
Courage, courage, whoever is base ! 
The soul of a high intent, be it known. 
Can no more die than any soul 
Which God keeps by Him under the throne. 
Napoleon III. in Italy. — E. B. B. 

November 24th. 
Can a voice so low and soft 

Take open actual part 
With Right, — maintain aloft 

Pure truth in life or art, 
Vexed always, wounded oft ? 

Where's Agnes ?— E. B. B. 

She never found fault with you, never implied 
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at 

her side 
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the 

whole town 
The children were gladder that pulled at her 

gown. 



342 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, 

She took as she found them, and did them 

all good ; 

It was always so with her. 

My KaU.—E. B. B. 

November 2^th. 
Evil is in its nature loud, while good 
Is silent. 

Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

If one built a palace without noise and 
confusion and the stroke of hammers, one 
would scarcely get credit for it in this 
world ... so full of virtue and admiration 
it is, to make a noise ! 

— From The Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Copyright, 1899, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

Central peace, mother of strength, 

That's father of . . . nay, go yourself that 

length, 
Ask those calm-hearted doers what they do 
When they have got their calm ? 

Sordello.—K. B. 



FR03I BROWNING 343 

November 26th. 
Of earth the weak, 
Made and unmade, 
Where men that faint, do strive for crowns 

that fade ? 
Where, having won the profit which they seek, 
They He beside the sceptre and the gold 
With fleshless hands that cannot wield or hold, 
And the stars shine in their unwinking eyes ? 
The Seraphim.— E. B. B. 

O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
O delved gold, the wallers heap ! 
O strife, O curse that o'er it fall ! 
God strikes a silence through you all, 
And " giveth His beloved, sleep." 

The Sleep.— E. B. B. 

November 2yth, 
And thus I know this earth is not my sphere, 
For I cannot so narrow me, but that 
I still exceed it. 

Pauline. — R. B. 



344 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

O God ! where does this tend — these strug- 
gling aims ! 

What would I have? what is this "sleep," 
which seems 

To bound all? can there be a "waking" 
point 

Of crowning life? The soul would never 
rule — 

It would be first in all things — it would 
have 

Its utmost pleasure filled, — but that com- 
plete 

Commanding for commanding sickens it. 

The last point that I can trace is, rest 
beneath 

Some better essence than itself — in weak- 
ness; 

This is " myself" — not what I think should 
be. 

And what is that I hunger for but God ? 

lUd, 



FROM BROWNING 345 

November 28th. 

Sorrow how avoid ? 
Let the employer match the thing employed, 
Fit to the finite his infinity, 
And thus proceed forever, in degree 
Changed but in kind the same, still limited 
To the appointed circumstance and dead 
To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere ; 
Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here ; 
Since to the spirit's absoluteness all 
Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call 
Life, are conditions ; take but this among 
Many ; the body was to be so long 
Youthful, no longer ; but, since no control 
Tied to that body's purposes his soul, 
She chose to understand the body's trade 
More than the body's self — had fain conveyed 
Her boundless to the body's bounded lot. 
Hence, the soul permanent, the body not, — 
Scarcely its minute for enjoying here, — 
The soul must needs instruct her weak com- 
peer. 

Sordello.—K. B. 



346 BEAUTIFUL THOUGETS 

November 2gth. 
O Earth, 
I count the praises thou art worth, 
By thy waves that move aloud, 
By thy hills against the cloud, 
By thy valleys warm and green, 
By thy copses' elms between ; 

By thy silver founts that fall. 
As if to entice the stars at night 
To thine heart ; by grass and rush, 
And little weeds the children pull, 
Mistook for flowers ! 

Earth, we Christians praise thee thus. 
Even for the change that comes, 
With a grief, from thee to us ! 
For thy cradles and thy tombs : 
For the pleasant corn and wine. 
And summer heat ; and also for 
The frost upon the sycamore. 
And hail upon the vine ! 

Earth and Her Fraisers. — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 347 

November joth. 
Go back to the beginning, — the first fact 
We're taught is, there's a world beside this 

world, 
With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry ; 
That much within that world once sojourned 

here, 
That all upon this world will visit there, 
And therefore that we, bodily h*ere below, 
Must have exactly such an interest 
In learning what may be the ways o* the 

world 
Above us, as the disembodied folk 
Have (by all analogic likehhood) 
In watching how things go in the old world 
With us, their sons, successors, and what not. 
Oh, yes, with added powers probably. 
Fit for the novel state, — old loves grown pure. 
Old interests understood aright, — they watch ! 
Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help. 
Proportionate to advancement : they're ahead. 
That's all — do what we do, but noblier done. 
Mr. Sludge, " The Medium.'^— R. B. 



DECEMBER. 



December ist. 

Mountain gorses, ever golden ! 

Cankered not the whole year long ! 
Do you teach us to be strong, 
Howsoever pricked and holden 
Like your thorny blooms, and so 
Trodden on by rain and snow 
Up the hillside of this life, as bleak as where 
ye grow ? 

Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms ! 
Do ye teach us to be glad 
When no summer can be had, 
Blooming in our inward bosoms ? 
Ye, whom God preserveth still, 
Set as lights upon a hill 
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth 
still ! 

Lessons from the Gorse. — E. B. B. 



352 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 2d. 
. . , . crying from the top of souls, 
To souls, that here assembled on earth's flats, 
To get them to some purer eminence 
Than any hitherto beheld for clouds ! 
What height we know not, — but the way we 

know, 
And how by mounting ever, we attain. 
And so climb on. It is the hour for souls ; 
That bodies, leavened by the will and love. 
Be lightened to redemption. The world's 

old; 
But the old world waits the time to be re- 
newed : 
Toward which, new hearts in individual 

growth 
Must quicken, and increase to multitude 
In new dynasties of the race of men, — 
Developed whence, shall grow spontaneously 
New churches, new economies, new laws 
Admitting freedom, new societies 
Excluding falsehood. He shall make all new. 
Aurora Leigh, — E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 353 

December ^d. 
. . . . read my books, 
Without considering whether they were fit 
To do me good. Mark, there. We get no 

good 
By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
And calculating profits ... so much help 
By so much reading. It is rather when 
We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's pro- 
found, 
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 
'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 
Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

The world of books is still the world, I 

write, 
And both worlds have God's providence, 

thank God, 
To keep and hearten : with some struggle, 

indeed. 
Among the breakers, some hard swimming 

through 



354 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

The deeps . . . and being dashed 
From error on to error, every turn 
Still brought me nearer to the central truth. 

Ihid. 
December 4th. 
Trouble's a bad word. 

Fippa Passes. — R. B. 

Dear, be happy. Sing your songs, 
If that's your way ! but sometimes slumber 

too, 
Nor tire with too much following, out of 

breath, 
The rhymes upon your mountains of Delight. 
Reflect, if Art be in truth the higher life. 
You need the lower life to stand upon 
In order to reach up unto that higher : 
And none can stand a-tiptoe in the place 
He cannot stand in with two stable feet. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

There's a world of capability 
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 
Inviting us. 

Cfeon.— R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 355 

December ^th. 
It takes but little water just to touch 
At some one point the inside of a sphere, 
And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the 

rest 
In due succession : but the finer air 
Which not so palpably nor obviously, 
Though no less universally, can touch 
The whole circumference of that emptied 

sphere, 
Fills it more fully than the water did ; 
Holds thrice the weight of water in itself 
Resolved into a subtler element. 
And yet the vulgar call the sphere first 

full 
Up to the visible height — and after, void ; 
Not knowing air's more hidden properties. 
And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to 

Zeus 
To vindicate his purpose in our life : 
Why stay we on the earth unless to grow ? 

Cleon: "^ As certain also of your own poets have 
said."— R. B. 



356 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 6th. 
We have creatures there, which if you 

saw 
The first time, you would doubtless marvel at 
For their surpassing beauty, craft and strength. 
And though it were a lively moment's shock 
Wherein you found the purpose of forked 

tongues 
That seemed innocuous in their lambent 

play. 
Yet, once made known such grace requires 

such guard. 
Your reason soon would acquiesce, I think, 
In wisdom which made all things for the 

best — 
So, take them, good with ill, contentedly, 
The prominent beauty with the latent sting. 

Luria. — R. B. 

*' As Hke as a Hand to another Hand ! " 
Whoever said that foolish thing. 
Could not have studied to understand 
The counsels of God in fashioning. 

Jamea Lee^s Wife, — R. B. 



FEOM BROWNING 357 

December yth. 
What is this thought or thing 
Which I call beauty? is it thought or 

thing ? 
Is it a thought accepted for a thing? 
Or both ? or neither ? — a pretext ? — a word ? 
Its meaning flutters in me like a flame 
Under my own breath : my perceptions 

reel 
Forevermore around it and fall off, 
As if it were too holy. 

Which it is. 
The essence of all beauty I call love. 
The attribute, the evidence, and end. 
The consummation to the inward sense, 
Of beauty apprehended from without, 
I still call love. As form, when colorless, 
Is nothing to the eye ; that pine-tree there, 
Without its black and green, being all a 

blank ; 
So, without love, is beauty undiscerned 
In man or angel. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 



358 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 8th. 
As I walk 
There's springing and melody and giddiness, 
And old quaint turns and passages of my 

youth — 
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves — 
Return to me — whatever may amuse me, 
And earth seems in a truce with me, and 

heaven 

Accords with me, all things suspend their 

strife. 

Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

Earth fades. Heaven dawns on me. ... I 

shall wake next 
Before God's throne : the moment's close at 

hand 
When Man the first, last time, has leave to 

lay 
His whole heart bare before his Maker — 

leave 
To clear up the long error of a life 
And choose one happiness forevermore. 

Strafford.— R. B. 



FB03I BROWNING 359 

December gth. 
Over the ball of it, 

Peering and prying, 
How I see all of it 

Life there, outlying ! 
Roughness and smoothness, 

Shine and defilement, 
Grace and uncouthness; 

One reconcilement. 

Orbed as appointed, 

Sister with brother 
Joins, ne'er disjointed 

One from the other. 
All's lend-and-borrow ; 

Good, see, wants evil, 
Joy demands sorrow. 

Angel weds devil ! 

"Which things must — why be? " 
Vain our endeavor ! 
So shall things aye be 
As they were ever. 



360 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



*' Such things should ^^ be ! " 
Sage our desistence ! 
Rough-smooth let globe be, 
Mixed — man's existence ! 

Man — wise and foolish, 

Lover and scorner, 
Docile and mulish — 

Keep each his corner ! 
Honey yet gall of it ! 

There's the life lying. 
And I see all of it, 

Only, I'm dying ! 

Pisgah-Sights. — R. B. 

December loth. 
Well. 'Tis a strange thing : I am dying, 

Festus, 
And now that fast the storm of life subsides, 
I first perceive how great the whirl has been. 
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now — 
Calm in the thick of tempest, but no less 
A partner in its motion and mixed up 
With its career. The hurricane is spent, 



FROM BROWNING 361 

-vnd the good boat speeds through the 

brightening weather ; 
But is it earth or sea that heaves below ? 
The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'er- 

strewn 
With ravaged boughs and remnants of the 

shore ; 
. . . . Even so my varied life 
Drifts by me ; I am young, old, happy, sad. 
Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest. 
And all at once : that is, those past con- 
ditions 

Float back at once on me. 

Paracelsus. — R. B. 

December nth. 
And this is death : I understand it all. 
New being waits me ; new perceptions must 
Be born in me before I plunge therein ; 
Which last is Death's affair ; and while I 

speak. 
Minute by minute he is filling me 
With power ; and while my foot is on the 

threshold 



362 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Of boundless life — the doors unopened 

yet, 
All preparations not complete within — 
I turn new knowledge upon old events, 
And the effect is . . . but I must not 

tell; 
It is not lawful. Your own turn will come 
One day. Wait, Festus ! You will die 

like me. 

Paracelma. — R. B. 

Strange secrets are let out by Death, 
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world. 

lUd. 

December 12th. 

Robert Browning died December, 12th, 1889. 
God shall take thee to His breast, dear 

spirit, 
Unto his breast, be sure ! and here on 

earth 
Shall splendor sit upon thy name forever. 
Paracelsus^ — R. B. 



FROM BROWNING 363 

And then, the last song 
When the dead man is praised on his journey 

— " Bear, bear him along, 
With his few faults shut up like dead 
flowerets ! " 

8aul.—R. B. 

Meantime hold hard by truth and his great 

soul, 

Do out the duty ! Through such souls alone 

God stooping shows sufficient of His light 

For us i' the dark to rise by. 

The Ring and the Book, — R. B. 

December ijth. 
Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the 
storm, 
The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible 
form, 



364 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the summit at- 
tained, 
And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be 
gained, 
The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, 
and forbore. 
And bade me creep past. 

Prospice. — R. B. 

December 14th. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my 
peers 
The heroes of old. 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's 
arrears 
Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the 
brave. 
The black minute's at end, 



FROM BROWNING 365 



And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that 
rave, 
Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
Shall change, shall become a peace out of 
pain. 
Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee 
again. 
And with God be the rest ! 

Prospice. — R. B. 

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er 
Within my mind each look, get more and 

more 
By heart each word, too much to learn at first. 
And join thee all the fitter for the pause 
'Neath the low door-way's lintel. 

Any Wife to Any Husband. — R. B. 

December i^th. 
No more lifes, deaths, loves, hatreds, peaces, 

wars ! 
Ah, fragments of a whole ordained to be. 
Points in the life I waited ! what are ye 



366 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



But roundels of a ladder which appeared 
Awhile the very platform it was reared 
To lift me on ? — that happiness I find 
Proofs of my faith in, even in the blind 
Instinct which bade forego you all unless 
Ye led me past yourselves. Ay, happiness 
Awaited me ; the way life should be used 
Was to acquire, and deeds like you conduced 
To teach it by a self-revealment, deemed 
Life's very use, so long ! Whatever seemed 
Progress to that, was pleasure ; aught that 

stayed 
My reaching it — no pleasure. I have laid 
The ladder down ; I climb not ; still, aloft, 
The platform stretches ! 

Sordello.—R. B. 

December i6th. 
'Twas an ill prayer : it shall be prayed no 

more; 
And God did use it like a foolishness. 
Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown 
Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer. 
A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 367 

God answers sharp and sudden on some 

prayers, 
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in 

our face, 
A gauntlet with a gift in't. Every wish 
Is hke a prayer . . . with God. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

A child may say amen 

To a bishop's prayer and feel the way it 

goes. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

December lyth. 
Shghts, scorns, neglects, were heaped on you 

to bear : 
And ever you did bear and bow the head ! 
It had been sorry trial, to precede 
Your feet, hold up the promise of reward 
For luring gleam ; your footsteps kept the track 
Through dark and doubt : take all the light 

at once ! 

Well have you served, as well henceforth com- 

mand ! 

Lima, — R. B. 



368 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Take all the experiences of all the world, 
Each knowledge that broke through a heart 

to life, 
Each reasoning which, to reach, burnt out a 

brain, 
. . . . and when the fresh heart breaks. 
The new brain proves a ruin, what of them r 
What is the matter of one moth the more 
Singed in the candle, at a summer's end? 

Luria. — R. B, 

December i8th. 
The only teachers who instruct mankind, 
. . . . To find man's veritable stature 

out. 
Erect, sublime, — the measure of a man. 
And that's the measure of an angel, says 
The apostle. Ay, and while your common 

men 
Lay telegraphs, guage railroads, reign, reap, 

dine, 
And dust the flaunty carpets of the world 
For kings to walk on, or our president, 
The poet suddenly will catch them up 



FROM BROWNING 369 

With his voice like a thunder. . . . "This 

is soul, 
This is life, this word is being said in 

heaven, 
Here's God down on us ! what are you 

about?" 
How all those workers start amid their 

work, 
Look round, look up, and feel, a moment's 

space, 
That carpet-dusting, though a pretty trade. 
Is not the imperative labor after all. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 

December igth. 
I do but stand and think. 
Across the waters of a troubled life 
The Flower of Heaven so vainly overhangs, 
What perfect counterpart would be in sight, 
If tanks were cleaner. Let us cleanse the 

tubes. 
And wait for rains. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



370 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

In your patience ye are strong; cold and 
heat ye take not wrong : 

When the trumpet of the angel blows eter- 
nity's evangel, 

Time will seem to you not long. 

The Rhyme of the Duchess May. — E. B. B. 

Step out grandly to the infinite 
From the dark edges of the sensual ground ! 
The SouVs Expression.— E. B. B. 

December 20th. 

In prayers, that upward mount 

Like to a fair-sunned fount 
Which, in gushing back upon you, 
Hath an upper music won you. 

In hope that apprehends 

An end beyond these ends : 
And great uses rendered duly 
By the meanest song sung truly ! 

For life, so lovely- vain, 

For death, which breaks the chain, — 
For this sense of present sweetness, — 
And this yearning to completeness ! 



FB03I BROWNING 371 

For sights of things away, 

Through fissures of the clay, 
Promised things which shall be given 
And sung over, up in Heaven, — 

A Lay of the Early Rose. — E. B. B. 

Decemebr 21st 
There's heaven above, and night by night 

I look right through its gorgeous roof ; 
No suns and moons though e'er so bright 

Avail to stop me \ splendor-proof 

I keep the broods of stars aloof: 
For I intend to get to God, 

For 'tis to God I speed so fast, 
For in God's breast, my own abode. 

Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, 

I lay my spirit down at last. 
I lie where I have always lain, 

God smiles as He has always smiled ; 
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, 

Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 
The heavens, God thought on me, His child. 
Johannes Agricola in Meditation. — R. B. 



372 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 22d. 
Can I teach thee, my beloved, — can I teach 
thee? 
If I said, Go left or right, 
The counsel would be light. 
The wisdom poor of all that could enrich 
thee ! 
My right would show like left ; 
My raising would depress thee, 
My choice of light would blind thee, 
Of way, would leave behind thee, 
Of end, would leave bereft ! 
Alas ! I can but bless thee — 
May God teach thee, my beloved, — may God 
teach thee ! 

Can I bless thee, my beloved, — can I bless 
thee ? 
What blessing word can I, 
From mine own tears keep dry ? 
What flowers grow in my field wherewith to 
dress thee? 



FBOM BROWNING 373 



Alas ! I can but love thee ! 
May God bless thee, my beloved, — may God 
bless thee ! 

A Valediction, — E. B. B. 

December 2^d. 

How could I think it right. 
Newcomer on our earth as. Sweet, thou art. 
To bring a verse from out a human heart 
Made heavy with accumulated tears, 
And cross with such amount of weary years 

The day-sum of delight ? 



Therefore no song of mine ! 
But prayer in place of singing ! prayer that 

would 
Commend thee to the new-creating God, 
Whose gift in childhood's heart without its 

stain 
Of weakness, ignorance and changing vain — 
That gift of God be thine ! 

A Song Against Singing. — E. B. B. 



374 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 24th. 
Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve, 
God's own hand did the rainbow weave. 
Whereby the truth from heaven slid 
Into my soul ? 

Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. — R. B, 

I bring thee the gifts of the time ; 
Red, for the patriot's blood. 
Green, for the martyr's crown, 
White, for the dew and the rime, 
When the morning of God comes down. 
Christmas Gifts.— E. B. B. 

Using heaven's own tune in hymning. 

While deep response from earth's own 

mountains ran, 
"Peace upon earth — ^good will to man." 
" Glory to God ! '-—I said Amen afar. 

The Seraphim.— E. B. B. 

December 2^th. 
I . . . only heard the song 
" Peace upon earth," saw nothing but the face 
O' the Holy Infant and the halo there. 

21ie Ring and the Book,—R. B. 



FEOM BROWNING 375 

O Magi of the east and of the west, 

Your incense, gold and myrrh are excel- 
lent.— 
What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the 
rest? 
Your hands have worked well. Is your 
courage spent 
In handwork only? Have you nothing 
best. 
Which generous souls may perfect and 
present. 
And He shall thank the givers for ? 

Casa Guidi Windows. — E. B. B. 

And here is the star we sought, 
To show us where Christ was born ! 

Christmas Gifts.— E. B. B. 

December 26th. 

Through all the Angel-song 
Shall penetrate one weak and quivering 
prayer. 

Straford.—R. B. 



376 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



She so had prayed : and God, who hears 

Through seraph-songs the sound of 

tears. . . . 

hobeVs Child.— E. B. B. 

Are crowns yet to be won, in this late trial. 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
'Tis God's voice calls, how could I stay? 
Pippa Passes. — R. B. 

December 2yth. 
Earth breaks up, time drops away. 
In flows heaven, with its new day 
Of endless life, when He who trod, 
Very man and very God, 
This earth in weakness, shame and pain, 
Dying the death whose signs remain 
Up yonder on the accursed tree, — 
Shall come again, no more to be 
Of captivity the thrall, 
But the one God, All in all. 
King of kings. Lord of lords. 
As His servant John received the words, 
'* I died, and live forevermore ! " 

Christmas Ece and Easter-Day. — R. B, 



FROM BROWNING 377 

was 



B. 



And if you weep still, weep where John 

laid 
While Jesus loved him. 

Aurora Leigh, — E. B. 

December 28th. 
A man on earth He wandered once, 

All meek and undefiled : 
And those who loved Him said '' He wept, — ' 

None ever said '' He smiled ; " 
Yet there might have been a smile unseen, 
When He bowed His blessed face, I ween, 
To bless that happy child. 

The PoeVs Vow.—E. B. B. 

Babes ! Love could always see and hear 
Behind the cloud that hid them : • 
*'Let httle children come to Me, 
And do not thou forbid them." 

So, unforbidding, we have met. 
And gently here have laid her ; 

Though winter is no time to get 

The flowers that should o'erspread her. 
A Child's Ch'ave at Florence. — E. B. B. 



378 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December 2^th. 
Poets singing sweetest snatches, 
While that deaf men keep the watches 

Vaunting to come before 

Our own age evermore, 
In a loneness, in a loneness, 
And the nobler for that oneness ! 

Holy in voice and heart, 
To high ends set apart ! 
All unmated, all unmated, 
Just because so consecrated. 

But if alone we be, 

Where is our empery ? 
And if none can reach our statue, 
Who can mete our lofty nature ? 

What angel, but would seem 
To sensual eyes, ghost-dim ? 

And without assimilation, 

Vain is inter-penetration. 

A Lay of the Early Bose.—E. B. B. 



FROM BROWNING 379 

December }oth. 
Be content 
To minister with voluntary grace 
And melancholy pardon, every rite 
And function in you, to the human hand. 
Be ye to man as angels are to God, 
Servants in pleasure, singers of delight, 
Suggesters to his soul of higher things 
Than any of your highest. So at last. 
He shall look round on you with lids too 

straight 
To hold the grateful tears, and thank you 

well; 
And bless you when he prays his secret 

prayers. 
And praise you when he sings his open 

songs 
For the clear song-note he has learnt in you 
Of purifying sweetness ; and extend 
Across your head his golden fantasies 
Which glorify you into soul from sense ! 
Go serve him for such price. 

A Drama of Exile.— E. B. B. 



380 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

December jist. 

Robert Browning buried in Poets' Corner, West- 
minster Abbey, on Dec. 31st, 1889. 

Sun-treader — life and light be thine forever; 
Thou art gone from us — years go by — and 

spring 
Gladdens, and the young earth is beautiful, 
Yet thy songs come not — other bards arise, 
But none like thee — they stand — thy maj- 
esties. 
Like mighty works which tell some Spirit there 
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn. 
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 
And left us, never to return : and all 
Rush in to peer and praise when all is vain. 
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet. 

Pmdine.—^. B. 

The great escapings of ecstatic souls, 
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame. 
Their radiant faces upward, burn away 
This dark of the body, issuing on a world 
Beyond our mortal. 

Aurora Leigh. — E. B. B. 



Beautiful Thoughts: 

Selections for Every T> ay from 

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